


To Banish an Incubus

by Celty_me



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Bottom Lance (Voltron), Comfort, Established Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, Exorcisms, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Incubus Lance (Voltron), Langst, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Protective Keith (Voltron), Protective Shiro (Voltron), Rape Recovery, Recovery, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-12-21 10:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21073406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celty_me/pseuds/Celty_me
Summary: Keith and Shiro are established, well respected exorcists, and very much in love. They keep people safe from demons and have never questioned what they do, until the time comes when it's a demon that needs their protection.The sweet, soft-hearted incubus Lazeron, nicknamed Lance, will make them question everything they know about demons as he worms his way into their hearts.





	1. The call

**Author's Note:**

> TW: this fic references past rape, but it is not explicitly described or shown. Any smut between Keith/Lance/Shiro (coming in later chapters) will be completely consensual (because they're soft bois).

~

Keith stared into the open drawer, one hand rubbing absently over his chin as he contemplated the assortment of knives within.

  
“I still don’t feel comfortable about this one,” Shiro said from where he sat on the bed lacing up his boots.

  
Keith didn’t take his eyes off the knives. “You keep saying that.”

  
“Well it hasn’t stopped being true. Something about that call was off.”

  
Keith picked up his enchanted dagger, the one he’d gotten from his mother. It had a black blade, a razor-sharp edge, and once activated it expanded into a curved sword. Perfect for stunning demons.

  
“It seemed typical to me. Usually the people who call us to exorcise a demon are scared.”

  
“Yeah but I mean, think about it. The way she worded it was as if she was scared for the demon, not of the demon.”

  
“She said she needed us to go help as quickly as possible and to not tell anyone who called us. Maybe she lives in one of those demon summoning cults and they got themselves in deep shit and are being held hostage by a demon. You know how the evil bastards operate once summoned: posses, control, conquer.”

  
Shiro sighed and Keith finally turned around to looked at him after sheathing his dagger into the holster on his belt.

“Promise me you’ll be careful on this one. No reckless shit. I have a bad feeling.”

  
Keith smiled and stepped forward to press a chaste kiss to Shiro’s lips.

  
“No reckless shit,” he promised.

  
“Good.” Shiro didn’t grab a weapon, he didn’t need it with the enchantment on his arm. He hadn’t gotten the enchantment by choice, and the spell that had blackened and cracked the limb hadn’t been pleasant, but it had saved both his and Keith’s lives more than once.

  
They chose to take Shiro’s SUV and the ride was mostly silent on their way to the address they had been called too. Despite Keith’s earlier flippant attitude, he couldn’t help but mirror the apprehension Shiro had been showing. Now that it had been brought to his attention, he couldn’t stop thinking about the words of the terrified woman on the phone.

  
_‘You have to help him. Please, you have to help him.’ _

  
At first Keith assumed someone important to this woman had been possessed, but she hadn’t mentioned anything like that. She’d said ‘there’s a demon. You have to help him.’

  
Shiro and Keith were exorcists, they banished and sometimes killed unruly demons who had made their way onto this plane of existence and possessed mortal bodies, but these demons weren’t biblical demons, they were, essentially, sentient beings from another realm. They seemed to have a penchant for chaos and destruction and usually could only make it to the human realm by way of summoning, and could only exist on this plane by possessing a human body. There had been exceptions, rare cases of demons fully manifesting in the human plane in their own bodies, but it wasn’t easy for them to crossover like that.

  
Those words kept going through Keith’s mind. The closer they go to the address, the more he shared in Shiro’s apprehension. The pair of them had a certain... sixth sense when it came to demon hunting – through spells and various trials they developed an intuition far exceeding that of most humans. And they knew something was different about this case.

  
The house they pulled up to seemed normal enough. It was moderately secluded, sitting on a little over two acres of land, but other houses were clearly in sight. The lights were on inside, the lawn was well manicured, and as they watched a laughing man walked across the open windows.

  
Keith and Shiro exchanged an uneasy glance. Nothing about this house indicated a demonic presence. Through their open windows they detected no scent of blood, not hints of magic, there was no demonic energy. Everything was just...normal.  
On an unspoken command, the pair got out of the car at the same time and walked up the steps of the wraparound porch to knock on the front door. There was sounds of chatter and laughter from inside, and after a few moments the door opened to reveal a middle-aged, smiling man.

  
“Hey there! Can I help you both with something.”

  
“We’re exorcists, and we were made aware that there may be a demonic presence in this house. We came out to make sure everyone is okay,” Shiro said, not bothering to try and lie or cover up their reason for being there.

Exorcists were rare, but not unknown, and the man was briefly surprised before he threw his head back and started laughing. 

“Oh damn this is hilarious. Yeah yeah we’re more than okay. We’re great actually. I got no idea who made ya’ll come out here but we are not in danger from the demon. We got things well under control. Wanna come in and see? Exorcists like yourselves are probably going to just love this.”

  
Keith couldn’t help it when his eyebrows raised up. He was suspicious and wary, but also oddly curious. The man hadn’t denied the presence of a demon, but he also didn’t seem even slightly worried.

  
Shiro, ever the stoic one, just smiled lightly and nodded. “Yes, we’d like to come in and check out the situation. We want to make sure everyone is safe.”

  
“And I sure appreciate the work ya’ll do, which is why I think you’ll like this so much. I’m Kelvin, this is my home, I got some buddies here who have all been enjoying themselves but they’re fine on their own for a bit. Come on in.” Kelvin motioned them inside, and Shiro and Keith followed, but they were both tense and wary, while remaining outwardly calm.

  
Kelvin chattered away at them as he led them through the house and to an open door with steps leading down to what looked like a basement.

  
“I think it’s alone right now, all of us are a bit tired out. Not sure if it’s conscious though, not that it matters too much. If ya’ll wanna enjoy him for a bit you feel free.”

  
A nauseas feeling rose in Keith at the words, and neither he nor Shiro were prepared for what they saw when Kelvin flipped the lights on.

  
The demon chained to the bed was obviously an incubus, a type of demon Shiro and Keith had only ever read about, but had never seen or heard of appearing on the human plane. They had descriptions of incubi from other demons who had been willing to give information, but that was it.

  
The boy, the incubus, was tanned and lithe, with long elegant limbs and a slender body. His hair was white, and there were blue markings under his eyes. He had pointed ears, slim horns protruding from his forehead and sweeping back in a curve above his head, and they saw a spade tail peeking out from below him. He was beautiful, and Keith and Shiro barely noticed because the condition he was in made them both sick.

  
The chains restraining the incubus were obviously spelled against demons, because the skin below where they wrapped around his wrists and ankles was blackened, cracked, and weeping a black ichor-like blood. A thick metal collar was wrapped around his neck, the skin beneath it similarly blackened. A huge gage was shoved into his mouth, cinched so tight that it cut into his skin, although thankfully the gag didn’t seem to be spelled. And his body... his body was bruised and streaked with bleeding lacerations, and he was covered in semen and other bodily fluids. His legs were chained so far apart that it was obvious to anyone who entered the room what had been done to him by the men upstairs, and the man at their side.

  
“An incubus,” Shiro said without emotion.

  
“Yeah! We’ve been trying for years to get one of these summoned. Never worked, they’re hard as hell to get into this plane of existence, but we finally got him. I mean we were trying for a succubus, but an incubus is just as good! And shit, you got no idea how good it feels to fuck an incubus. He self-lubricates you know? And man, something about his body make you feels almost drunk, or high, but without all the hangovers and shit you know?”

  
“How long have you had him down here?” Shiro asked. Keith was grateful. He didn’t know if he could utter a sound unless it was him screaming at the man.

  
“Oh, few months I guess? He was pretty feisty at first which is why we had to whip him, but after some punishment and a lot of fucking he quieted down. He got a bit too subdue though, so now we kind of have to threaten to hurt him to get him to do something besides lay there like a dead fish. If you like ‘em a bit more active, we got some spelled whips. He really doesn’t like those, so just threaten him with that or just hit him a few times and he’ll do what you want.”

  
“Good to know. We don't like an audience though, would you mind if we had privacy?"

  
“Sure thing, but you ain’t gonna banish him or anything right?”

  
“No, banishing demons who have a physical form is not an easy process.”

  
“Alright! Have fun then, just come on up stairs when you’re done.”

  
With that the man walked away, whistling a merry tune all the way up the stairs and shutting the door behind him. The incubus on the bed didn’t even move, but Keith whirled on Shiro in a fury.

  
“What the fuck is this?!?” He kept his voice low, but the anger was clear.

  
“I don’t know.”

  
“We cannot leave this incubus here. I don’t care if it’s a demon, nothing deserves this.”

  
“I know, but we need to figure out how to get him out of the house in the safest way for both us and him. I don’t know much about incubi, and I don’t know if he’ll hurt us once freed.”

  
“I am not leaving him in those chains.”

  
Shiro nodded and sighed. “Let’s remove the gag and see if he’ll talk to us.”

  
They approached the bed cautiously, and once they got close the incubus finally stirred, but did nothing except pull against the chains as if trying to get farther away from them, his eyes didn’t even open.

  
“We’re not going to hurt you, or do what the other men in this house have. We’re going to take out the gag and I hope you’ll speak with us.” Shiro kept his voice soft and steady, and it made the demon open his electric blue eyes. They were hazy and tight with pain, but his eyebrows lowered in what seemed to be curiosity.

  
Shiro moved slowly, broadcasting his every movement to avoid startling the abused demon. It took some effort, but he managed to unbuckled the gag and pull it free before chucking it far across the room.

  
“Exorcists,” the incubus said immediately.

  
“We are, but we’re not going to hurt you, and we don’t condone what’s been done to you. We want to help get you out of here, and then hopefully find the best method of getting you back to your realm without hurting you further. However, we need to know we can trust you not to hurt us if we undo your bonds.”

  
Shimmering tears beaded at the corner of the incubus’s eyes. “No more pain?” he asked.

  
Shiro smiled and nodded. “No more pain.”

  
The boy sigh and those tears spilled. “I won’t hurt you. I am not the type of demon who likes to harm.”

  
Shiro glanced at Keith, and a moment of agreement passed silently between them. Somehow, they believed what the incubus said.

  
Keith drew his dagger slowly, frowning when the incubus winced and tried to move away from him as far as the chains allowed.

  
“Easy, that’s Keith. He's not going to hurt you. That dagger is enchanted to cut through anything, including these chains.”

  
“And your name?”

  
“I’m Shiro. May I ask yours?”

  
The incubus hesitated. “Lazeron,” he said quietly.

  
“Does it mean anything in your language?” Shiro gave a slight nod to Keith, indicating for him to start cutting away the chains while he distracted the incubus.

  
“The meaning is hard to convey in human language. It is something like, ‘beautiful striking lance.’ But there are nuances.”

  
“I understand. My native language has many nuances in meaning as well.” Keith finished cutting through the first chain around the incubus’s right wrist. As soon as it fell away he brought his arms down and cradled it close to his chest.

  
“Collar next,” Shiro murmured to Keith before turning his attention back to the incubus. “For me, Shiro is actually just a nickname. My full name is Takashi Shirogane, although in my home country it would be Shirogane Takashi. Shiro is just a nickname since my full name is a mouthful. Do you have a nickname in your realm?”

  
“Lance,” the incubus whispered, holding very still as Keith carefully cut away the metal collar. As soon as it was off the incubus, Lance, visibly relaxed and his eyes drifted shut. Keith didn’t know much about demon sleep cycles, especially not physically manifested demons, but it seemed like Lance was falling asleep, or passing out.

  
“Are you tired, Lance?” Shiro asked. Lance only nodded.

  
“You can trust Keith and I. If you want to sleep now, we will look after you. When you wake, I promised you’ll be in a safer place.”

  
Lance didn’t even respond, his body just went limp as his consciousness faded.

  
“Fuck,” Keith sighed. Shiro only nodded. There wasn’t much else to say at that moment.

  
As soon as the chains had all been cut away, Shiro shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the unconscious demon, and for a moment neither men had any idea what to do. Their job was to exorcise or banish demons, not rescue them, and the only banishments they knew weren’t exactly pleasant for the demon. If possible, they wanted to avoid hurting the incubus further, but they were at a loss for how to do that.

  
“I guess we take him home with us,” Keith finally said. Shiro looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

  
“I was working out how to bring that option up with, didn’t expect you to say it first.”

  
“It’s not like we can leave him here, and we’ve never actually encountered a...” Keith waved his hands, searching for the right word. “I don’t know, a tame demon. We’ve also never encountered an abused demon. I’m out of my element here Shiro.”

  
“I am too. We banish demons who are wreaking havoc, but they are still intelligent, sentient beings and nothing deserves this.” Shiro waved his hand at the abused demon.

  
Keith scrubbed at his eyes. “So let’s go. I’ll carry him so you can do a memory wipe. I don’t want them to have any memory of us or him, or whatever ritual they used to bring him here.”

  
“That’s going to be a complex wipe – I can do it, but I also want to figure out who called us. I didn’t see any women walking in, and if this is how they’re treating the incubus I’m worried for the caller’s safety.”

  
“Shit, didn’t think about that. I’d also like to get some sort of blanket to wrap around the incubus. I don’t think demons get cold, but you know...”

  
“I get it. Okay, I'm going to freeze time so we can search the house before doing the memory wipe.”

  
“You stay here with him, I’ll go search for the caller and get a blanket.”

  
Shiro nodded and pulled a black pearl out of his pocket and held it in his enchanted hand. Purple light began to pulse out of the cracks in the blackened skin as he muttered guttural words in Infernal. The black pearl disintegrated into dust, the motes rising into the air and swirling, billowing, growing out and out, encompassing the room, leaking throughout the house, freezing time for the occupants.

  
“Okay, go. When you find the caller you remember how to unfreeze her?”

  
Keith rolled his eyes and smiled, kissing Shiro on his way towards the stairs. “Of course I do. I’ll be back in five.”

  
Keith cleared the bottom floor of the house with practiced efficiency, resisting the urge to drive his dagger into Kelvin’s neck when he passed by the frozen man. He made his way upstairs, went through each room, until he finally found a college aged girl sitting cross-legged on a bed. She was vaguely pretty, and at first glance appeared to be completely unharmed. Her room wasn’t overly tidy, but seemed typical for a college student. Overall she seemed completely fine except for the frozen expression of anxiety and worry on her face. She had to be the caller, there were no other women in the house.

Keith pulled a reddish colored pearl from his pocket and walked over, touching it against the woman’s forehead. She flinched as the time spell sloughed off, then yelped and backpedaled when Keith seemed to just appear out of nowhere.

  
“Easy, my name’s Keith. You called my partner and I about a demon.”

  
The girl visibly sagged, and her eyes were haunted when she looked up at him. “Did you already find him?”

  
“We did, and we’re going to help him.”

  
“Thank god,” she breathed. “I wasn’t supposed to know he was there. My dad... he always has these “bro” parties and asks me to stay in my room. I always just thought it was a guys night thing, and I spend most my time in my room anyways. But last week after one of the parties, I was searching for something and I thought maybe my dad had put it in the basement. He tells me not to go down there because the stairs are bad, but I thought fuck it you know? I’m an adult and it’ll be fine. But then I saw the incubus down there and like chained to the bed, and it was super obvious what my disgusting dad and his disgusting friends had been doing. And I didn’t know what to do you know? The chains were all locked, I had no idea where the key might be, and I didn’t know if the demon would hurt me if I released him, but I couldn’t just leave him down there so I just, I don’t know, I kept thinking about to do, then my dad told me he was having another party and I couldn’t just do nothing, so I called you guys.” The girl was ranting, her voice rising as she recounted everything.

  
“You did the right thing by calling us. We’re going to fix this and help the incubus. Do you have any idea how long he’s been down there?”

  
“I don’t know, I’m only back for summer break and my dad has been having his bro nights since I got home. My dad has always been a bit sleezy, but I didn’t, how could he, I never thought her could ra- ra...” she stuttered over that last word. “I didn’t know he would force someone like that, demon or not.” She was crying now.

  
“Do you have anywhere to stay besides here?”

  
“Yeah, I can go back to my dorm. It’s paid for over the summer. I just came home cause like, my dad’s sleezy but he’s not a bad dad, but now I can’t even look at him. I want nothing to do with him. I can never forgive someone who does that! But I didn’t want to leave until I knew the incubus would be helped.”

  
“We’re taking him out of here tonight, so if you want to leave, then go.”

  
The girl didn’t hesitate. She launched herself off the bed and began throwing things into a suitcase, unable to see the dark motes of time magic swirling around her as she moved.

  
“Do you have a blanket we can have? We want something to wrap him up in.”

  
She didn’t even respond, she just pulled a thick fleece blanket from her closet and tossed it to him before going back to her frantic packing.

  
Keith turned to leave, stopping only briefly when he heard a faint “thank you for coming and helping him.”

  
Keith walked out, back down to the basement, and said nothing as he pulled Shiro’s jacket off the incubus and draped the blanket around him.

  
“It was the guy’s daughter who called us. She found him by accident. She said her father has been having these parties since before she got back from college so he’s been here for a while.”

  
“Okay, let’s get him out of here then.” Shiro closed his palm and the motes of time magic disappeared, and noise resumed upstairs. Keith bent and picked up the oddly lightweight incubus while Shiro pulled another pearl from his pocket, a white one this time. The process was similar to before, except this time the billowing clouds of magic were a shimmering white.

  
“They’re under my influence now. Go ahead and take Lance to the car, I’ll be out soon.”

  
It was strange hearing Shiro refer so casually to the incubus. So far Keith hadn’t referred to him by name, almost as if he was afraid to think of the incubus as a living, breathing creature.

  
“Yeah, okay. We’ll wait in the car.”

  
Shiro followed behind Keith as he carried the demon up the stairs. He didn’t pause to look at the quiet, glassy eyed men assembled in the living room, he just walked out and left Shiro to his work.

After around fifteen minutes, Shiro walked out of the house, motes of magic flickering out behind him. He stepped into the car and turned it on without a word, and remained silent until they were far away from the house and on the highway.

  
“They won’t remember any details about Lance or the ritual they used – they know they summoned an incubus and raped it, but not any details aside from that. They’ll all go out and turn themselves in to the Preternatural Authority, confess what they did, and let the P.A. know the demon has been banished by exorcists. I’m not sure there’s any precedent at the P.A. for summoning and raping a demon, but we can only hope they take action. There’s plenty of evidence in that basement.”

  
“Why are we letting the P.A. think the demon has been banished?”

  
“Because as far as I know, this is the first time an incubus has ever been physically summoned to this realm. Everything we know about them is just theoretical, or pieced together from what other demons have told us. I’m afraid of what they’ll do if they get their hands on Lance – I think he’s been through enough.”

  
Keith looked down at the demon. “You sound oddly protective.”

  
“That poor thing was ripped out of his home realm, bound with chains that literally burned his skin off around them, raped who knows how many times, beaten and whipped. Our job is to exorcise or banish demons who are causing trouble, not to torture them.” Shiro didn’t just sound protective, he sounded furious.

  
The incubus shifted in Keith’s arm, a whimper slipping out as his injuries pulled. Keith stilled and looked down just as Lance opened his startlingly blue eyes.

  
“Easy, we’re taking you somewhere safe.”

  
“To banish?” His voice rasped out of his throat, and Keith worried about how much damage the collar had done.

  
“Not yet,” Shiro said, keeping his eyes on the road but driving just a bit faster. “We are going to help you recover first.”

  
“Why? Humans torture and kill demons.”

  
“We have never tortured a demon. We banish them back to their realm, that’s all.”

  
“Bringing us here is torture. For most, their essence is ripped from their bodies and forced into the body of a human, and they are made to do terrible things by their summoners – these things break their minds. If they return to our realm alive, most must be killed because they have no sanity left. The majority are dead on arrival. We only know of their experiences by extracting their memories.”

  
Keith didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. Most demons he and Shiro had encountered were violent and destructive, but they’d never contemplated that the demons weren’t like that originally.

  
“I don’t mean to doubt your words, but you seem more than sane,” Shiro murmured.

  
Lance shuddered and Keith couldn’t stop himself from holding the incubus just a little tighter.

  
“My physical body was summoned here, it’s different than my essence being ripped out. It is traumatic in a different way.”

  
“We’ve encountered demons who have been summoned here physically. They were no more sane than any other.”

  
“I’m different,” Lance said simply.

  
“Why?” Keith asked. Lance didn’t respond. He turned his face to hide it in the blanket and closed his eyes.

  
“We won’t ask anymore questions. You’ve been through enough. I know you have no reason to trust us, especially if everything you say is true, but I can only give you my word that neither of us will bring you further harm, and we’ll do whatever we can to find a safe way to return you to your home.”

  
Lance didn’t respond to Shiro either, and after a few minutes his body went lax again as he fell asleep.

After an hour of driving they made it back home, and had Lance inside in seconds. Shiro went rifling through their closet for clothes while Keith set the demon on the bed.

  
“Do you think he’s strong enough to take a bath on his own? Or should we...” Keith trailed off and waved a hand.

  
Shiro emerged from the closet with some sweats and a baggy t-shirt. “Try waking him up and we can ask him.”

  
Keith sighed and sat down on the bed beside the demon. He wasn’t sure where to start, so he just shook Lance’s shoulder.

  
“Hey, uh, you need to wake up now,” Keith said. Shiro snorted a laugh through his nose, earning him a glare from Keith.

  
“Shut up, I’ve never tried to gently wake up a demon before.”

  
“I can tell,” a raspy voice said. Shiro and Keith looked down at the glassy-eyed Lance. He looked exhausted.

  
“We’ve brought you to our home, and we have some clothes for you, but you probably want a shower first. If you aren’t feeling strong enough, one of us can help you.”

  
Lance eyes flicked around the room, curiosity filling his expression. “Is this how human homes are supposed to look?”

  
“I mean, not every one looks exactly the same, but yeah.”

  
“I never saw anything in the human realm except for that basement room.”

  
“Is it a lot different than your world?”

  
“It is...” Lance paused for a moment. “Less grand than where I lived.”

  
“Where did you live?” Keith asked. Lance took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  
“I would like some help bathing,” was all he said.

  
“Okay, I can help you. What about food? Keith can make something but I’m not sure what you eat.”

  
Lance’s eyes opened and he cocked his head to the side. “Generally, I will feed on the essence of others, but I've never eaten human food.” He sounded a little excited at the prospect.

  
“Okay,” Shiro said with a little laugh, “then Keith will make something to eat. What about your injuries? Is there a specific way to treat demons?”

  
“I don’t know, I've never been injured in such a way before. Usually I will heal quickly if I absorb essence, but these aren’t normal wounds.”

  
“Then we’ll figure something out.” Shiro looked at Keith and nodded his head. Keith slipped out of the room while Shiro walked over to Lance. With some help, they managed to get Lance on his feet, and the incubus didn’t seem to care when the blanket fell to a heap on the floor.

  
Lance tried to walk on his own, but Shiro ended up having to half carry him into the bathroom when Lance’s legs couldn’t seem to support him. He set Lance on the toilette while he started the shower, and couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the look of wonder on Lance’s face.

  
“Is it magic that allows the water to do this?”

  
“No, just technology.”

  
“What’s it called?”

  
“A shower.”

  
“Wow,” Lance murmured. Shiro smiled, but the expression dropped when he took in Lance’s body again. The blackened and burned skin at his ankles, wrists, and around his neck still seeped that ichor-like blood. There were whip lacerations all over his body, his rich brown skin was sallow and he was still covered in body fluids.

  
“The water might hurt your injuries,” Shiro said.

Lance looked down at himself, and for a moment his expression cracked and his face crumpled, but the expression was gone another moment later.

  
“It’s okay. I want to get clean.” He wrapped his arms around himself and looked at the floor, his posture hunching as he curled in on himself.

  
“Alright.” Shiro pulled the glove off of his right hand, then shrugged off his jacket. Lance looked up, eyes going wide when he saw Shiro’s arm – he'd been too delirious before to really process it. He reached out a gently took Shiro’s hand, turning it over, examining the cracked and blackened skin, then taking a deep breath in through his nose. Recognition flittered across his face.

  
“You know who did this, don’t you?” Shiro murmured.

  
Lance nodded. “Haggar. She was obsessed with finding a way to the human realm without being summoned. She disappeared some time ago, so I guess she succeeded. But she was insane before she disappeared. She...” Lance swallowed thickly. “She killed my mother and father and many others, leaving only my sister to, to...” he trailed off.

  
“She’s dead now.” Lance’s head snapped up to meet Shiro’s eyes. Shiro smiled and knelt down so he could meet Lance’s eyes directly instead of towering over him.

  
“Before Keith joined me, I was hired to track down and banish or kill Haggar. She’d murdered a lot of people, but I was young and cocky, the best exorcist in an age!” Shiro scoffed. “So I went in alone, and got myself captured. She experimented on me, experimented on how to mix human and demon. This was the result,” Shiro waved his arm. “I have the ability to use certain demon magics, but the pain she put me through... it was indescribable.”

  
Lance stared at him for a long moment, then brought Shiro’s hand forward and placed a soft kiss to the center of his palm. A cool, watery sensation flowed upwards from where Lance’s lips touched, soothing the ever-present burning sensation that had been in his arm since the incident with Haggar.

  
Shiro sagged, sitting back hard on the bathroom floor, the tension in his body releasing as he felt an absence of pain in his arm for the first time in all the years since the incident. Lance released his palm, a tired smile on his face.

  
“How did you do that?” Shiro asked, voice quaking.

  
“Incubi can bring comfort in a variety of different ways. We don’t only exist for physical pleasure. It’s not permanent, but I'll do it again whenever it wears off for as long as I’m here.” Lance swayed where he sat, visibly paler. Shiro stood back up, pulling himself together, and cupping Lance’s face to examine his drooping eyes.

  
“Did you expend essence to do that?”

  
Lance simply nodded.

  
“You didn’t have any energy to spare,” Shiro admonished gently. Lance’s eyes fluttered closed and he just nodded again.

Shiro let him go, pulled off his shirt and jeans, but kept his boxers on as he hauled Lance up and helped him stumble into the shower. It was an awkward process trying to clean up the barely conscious incubus, but somehow Shiro managed to wash his hair and body, and gained Lance’s permission to help clean him inside as well. 

After a forty minute struggle Shiro had Lance clean, bandaged, bundled into the sweats and t-shirt, and settled on the bed. Keith came in with chicken noodle soup not long after and somehow managed to get Lance to eat before the incubus passed out.

As soon as he was asleep and tucked under a mountain of blankets, Keith and Shiro settled onto the couch in the living room. Shiro told Keith everything Lance had said, what he’d done to soothe the pain in his arm, and when he finished they both sat in silence, staring at the wall, lost in their own heads.

  
“We can’t banish him,” Keith finally said.

  
“No. If what he said is true, banishing him like we usually banish demons would probably just end up killing him.”

  
“So what do we do? Keep him confined in our house forever?”

  
“Until he recovers it’ll be safer to keep him here, but we are going to need to find a way to send him home.”

  
“Fuck.” Keith let his head fall onto the back of the couch. “This is messed up.”

  
Shiro snaked his arm around Keith’s shoulders and pulled him close and kissed the side of his head.

  
“We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

  
Despite having a few spare bedrooms, they ended up just falling asleep right there on the couch. 


	2. Pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance tries pancakes and Shiro gets a call.

~

Shiro woke up with a crick in his neck, a tweaked back, and a fast asleep Keith using him as a body pillow. Sleeping on the couch wasn’t the most comfortable, but waking up wrapped around Keith certainly made up for it.

  
The living room was dark, the only illumination coming from the faint moonlight streaming in through the window and it was peaceful until Shiro heard the noise that had woken him up in the first place. It was faint, so faint that if he didn’t have various magical enhancements he would have never heard it.

  
Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “Keith, wake up.”

  
Keith snapped out of sleep in an instant, sitting up, eyes alert for a threat. His eyes met Shiro’s in the dim light.

  
“What’s wrong?”

  
Shiro put a finger to his lip and tapped his ear. Keith listened for a moment, eyebrows furrowing down a second before he was standing up and making his way into the bedroom, Shiro following at his heels.

  
The sobbing was louder when they opened the bedroom door. Lance wasn’t even visible, buried as he was beneath the comforter on the bed, but they could see the trembling outline of his body.

  
Keith didn’t hesitate to go and sit by him on the edge of the bed – he had a lot of experience with such things after he had to put Shiro back together night, after night, in the aftermath of his time with Haggar.

  
“Lance, it’s Keith. Let us help you.”

  
There was no response from beneath the blankets. Keith reached out and slowly peeled the blankets back, just enough to expose Lance’s upper body. He was curled up in a ball, head pressed to his knees, breathing too fast and dry sobbing.

  
“Lance, I’m going to take your hand, but I’m not going to hurt you.” Slowly, and ever so gently, Keith touched the back of Lance’s hand, and when the incubus didn’t pull away, he grabbed it and held it in his own.

  
Lance’s eyes slipped open, too wide, too scared, too pained... he looked at Keith, so afraid and so lost.

  
“We’re going to take care of you okay? We’ll keep anyone else from hurting you,” Shiro said. Lance’s eyes flicked to him, then back to Keith, and then he was sitting up and throwing his arms around Keith’s shoulders, clutching onto him, and crying into his shoulder. Keith had to angle his head away just a little to avoid the horns, but he still wrapped his arms around Lance to offer whatever comfort he could.

  
They stayed like that until the sun slowly came up, Keith keeping his arms wrapped firmly around Lance, and Shiro petting a hand up and down his back, until finally the panicked, sharp breaths evened out and the trembling began to subside.

  
“I’m sorry,” Lance whispered, pulling away from Keith but refusing to look up. He sat with his hands in his lap, eyes down, shoulders hunched, looking like a frightened animal that expected to be hit.

  
“Don't apologize, you did nothing wrong.”

  
“I interrupted your sleep.”

  
Shiro laughed softly. “We can sleep any time."

  
“How are you feeling? Are you hungry at all?”

  
Lance nodded. “The chains prevented me from feeding on the essence of those humans. I’ve been starved for months.”

  
Keith tensed up. He’d been talking about human food, but realized neither he nor Shiro were sure if that could sustain the incubus.

  
“Uhm, how is that you feed on essence.”

  
“I just have to touch someone.”

  
Shiro bit his lip. “Sexually?” he asked hesitantly. L

actually looked up, saw the expressions on Keith and Shiro’s faces, and actually laughed a little.

  
“Not necessarily. I can feed on any sort of energy, but uhm, how do I explain this?” Lance trailed off for a moment while he thought. “Sexual energy is like a big meal, it will make me full. Non-sexual energy can sustain me, but it’s like eating a snack. It will keep me alive just fine but I may not feel full, or satisfied? It’s hard to explain.”

  
“Then can you take our essence, or, uh, energy?”

  
Lance’s eyebrows went up. “You would let me?”

  
“I don’t think any of us are up to anything sexual, but I'd willingly give you regular energy.”

  
Lance shook his head and looked back down. “I don’t want to have sex right now either,” he whispered.

  
“Then just take some of my energy to get some of your strength back,” Keith said.

  
“Are you sure?”

  
Keith nodded. “I am.”

  
Lance brought a hand up, but hesitated. “I can’t take too much without weakening you, but even if I only take a little you still may feel a little weak.”

  
“How about you take a little from both of us?” Shiro asked. Lance glanced at him, and nodded.

  
“Okay.” His voice was barely above a whisper this time. He grabbed Keith’s hand, and Keith felt an odd tugging sensation, and Lance’s hand grew warm. It only lasted for a few seconds, but Keith felt a wave of tiredness roll over him, but it was mild, like how he and Shiro felt when they’d been up all night tracking a demon. He was tired, but it was manageable.

  
Lance repeated the process with Shiro, and a bit of color seemed to return to him. His skin was less sallow, the dark circles around his eyes faded, and a faint glow began to emanate from the blue markings under his eyes.

  
“Thank you. You both should eat something now.”

  
“Was that enough?” Shiro asked. Lance looked better, but nowhere near fully recovered.

  
“I can’t take more without hurting you. It takes a lot more regular energy to sustain me. Sexual energy is a lot more potent. If I try to feed like this until full, it could kill you, so I'll only take little bits at a time.”

  
Shiro didn’t argue, and neither did Keith. They wanted Lance to recover, but had to trust his word. They knew next to nothing about incubi, and if Lance said it was dangerous to take more, they really had no choice except to believe him.

  
“Okay. Do you want to eat something too? Our food might not sustain you like essence would, but it tastes good.”

  
“The soup last night was very good. Will we eat more of that?”

  
Keith smiled. “You definitely can eat more of that if you liked it, but usually humans eat different kinds of food for breakfast.”

  
“Like what?”

  
“Eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes.”

  
“I know what eggs are, but I don’t know any of those other things. I’ll eat whatever you want to make but you don’t have to make me food if it’s too much trouble.”

  
Keith laughed and stood up. “It’s not too much trouble for me. Shiro is the worst cook ever...”

  
“Hey!” Shiro snapped. Keith ignored him.

  
“So I do all the cooking and I actually like it.” He reached out a hand to Lance, and there was a pregnant silence while Lance looked at Shiro and Keith, before he took the offered hand and let Keith help him to his feet.

  
“Whoa,” Shiro said, grabbing Lance’s arm and steadying him when he wobbled.

  
“Thank you,” Lance said. Shiro hesitantly let him go, but hovered close just in case.

  
“Do you think you can walk on your own?” he asked. Lance let go of Keith’s hand as well and took a few tentative steps. He was about as shaky as a newborn faun, but he managed to stay upright.

They all shuffled into the kitchen, Shiro sitting on one of the stools set up at the kitchen island. Lance stayed standing, head swiveling around as he took in the kitchen. His mouth was parted slightly, showing pointed incisors that were more cute than they were frightening.

  
“Pancakes good with you Shiro?” Keith asked, already pulling ingredients out of various cabinets.   
“Sounds good to me.”

  
“Can I please watch you make these things?” Lance asked. Keith smiled.

  
“Sure, I don’t mind.”

  
Lance hesitantly returned the smile and stepped closer to Keith, completely getting in the way but neither men would ever tell him such. Keith just worked around him, not making any sort of comment when he bumped into Lance. He found it endearing how Lance seemed fascinated with every part of the process. It got to the point that Lance was literally pressed up against Keith’s shoulder while he watched the pancakes cooking in the pan.

  
“Want to try flipping one?” Keith asked. Lance nodded furiously, taking the spatula and mimicking what Keith had done. The pancake ended up folding over, and Keith wasn’t quick enough to stop Lance when he reached out and grabbed the pancake to try and right it.

  
“Wait Lance that’s hot!” But there was no point because Lance didn’t seem at all phased by the heat of the pan.

  
“I can’t be burned by non-magical means,” Lance said. To prove his point, he moved the pan aside and put his hand right directly on the hot stove. Keith yelped, yanked his hand away and frantically examined his palm. Even Shiro had rushed over, but they both deflated when they found absolutely no damage.

  
“See? I’m okay.” Lance waved his hand around to emphasize.

  
Keith huffed a sigh and his shoulders sagged. “I’m glad, but warn us next time so we don’t have a heart attack,” he said. Lance’s smile dropped and he looked down.

  
“Right, I'm sorry.”

  
Shiro put a hand on Lance’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “We’re not mad, just worried. Humans can’t usually touch really hot things without seriously hurting themselves.”

  
“Thank you for being worried about me.”

  
“No need to thank us for something like that. Pancakes are almost done, go ahead and sit next to Shiro and I'll bring them over,” Keith said. He patted Lance on the shoulder, smiled, then went back to his cooking.

  
Once the pancakes were done, Lance reacted to them like a delighted child. He chewed the first bite carefully, paused, smiled wide, then devoured the rest of his plate in seconds. Keith had made a huge stack, so he kept piling them onto Lance’s plate, sharing an amused glance with Shiro each time. As soon as all the food was gone, Lance was positively beaming at Keith.

  
“Those tasted amazing! Thank you so much!”

  
“It’s no problem, I’m glad you liked them.”

  
“I liked them a lot. I’ve never eaten anything like it.”

  
“Do you eat regular food in your realm? Or do all demons feed on the energy of others?” Shiro asked.

  
Lance shook his head. “Incubi and succubae are a little unique. Most demons need to eat real food, but it is mostly fruits and meats, nothing like this.”

  
“Is your whole family incubi or succubae?”

  
Lance shook his head again. “I was the only incubus ever born into my family. The blood runs in my family line thanks to my many times great grandmother, but until me an incubus was never born. My sister is a demon of light, incredibly powerful. She’s amazing and beautiful. Her hair is white like mine, but her markings are pink, and her horns spiral up so tall! She’s one of the most powerful demons alive and we’ve always been very close, she’s the one who gave me my name.”

  
“You weren’t born with the name Lazeron?” Keith asked.

  
“No, demons don’t keep their birth names. We are named later in life depending on our skills and achievements.”

  
“So why did you get your name? You said it means something like ‘beauitful striking Lance.’”

  
Lance looked down at his hands. “Incubi and succubae aren’t ever expected to do much. We can soothe pain, bring pleasure, and we have our uses... and it’s not like we are looked down on, but demons tend to coddle us, try to protect us because we don’t have the same kind of offensive power of other demons. We aren’t powerless or anything, but yeah I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. But when Haggar attacked, she had this demon named Sendak working under her. I was... caught in an explosion.” Lance took a deep breath and Keith took his hand.

  
“You don’t have to tell us,” he said.

  
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I was hurt badly, knocked out, but I woke up briefly and saw Sendak about to kill my sister. Guards were rushing in, but they were too far away, so I picked up a lance from a fallen guard and I threw it, I've always had pretty good aim,” Lance laughed a little. “The lance went straight through Sendak’s heart and killed him. I passed out right after, but somehow all the guards who had seen me do this spread the word and the tale became a bit overblown, everyone talking about how, despite being near dead, I went head to head with Sendak in single combat and killed him with a mighty blow of my lance!” Lance grinned a little sheepishly. “So, my sister gave me the name Lazeron to acknowledge what I had done.”

  
“Regardless of if the story was overblown, it’s still amazing that you could save your sister.”

  
“Yeah,” Lance nodded. “We lost our parents in that battle. Demons have long lives, my parents should have lived hundreds more years, so to lose them...” Lance’s chin wobbled. “I couldn’t lose Allura too.”

  
“Does your sister’s name have a meaning?”

  
“Blessed light.” Lance picked at the bandages around his left wrist, lips trembling. Shiro grabbed his hand and pulled it away from the bandages, then just held it, offering silent comfort.

  
“You’ve been through a lot,” he said.

  
Lance shrugged. “So have you.”

  
The sound of Shiro’s cell phone cut through the quiet air, and all three of them flinched. Shiro pulled the phone from the pocket of his sweats, then quickly showed the screen to Keith. Keith’s expression went hard for a moment before it softened and he looked at Lance.

  
“We should probably change the bandages and check on your injuries. Shiro can take the call.”

  
Lance was staring at the cell phone, confused by the loud ringing.

  
“It’s a cell phone, it allows people to talk to each other over long distances. We’ll show you how it works after I changed the bandages.”

  
“Okay.”

  
Lance let himself be pulled away while Shiro stepped out of the front door and closed it behind him. The call had stopped already, but it only took a few seconds for it to begin ringing again.

  
Shiro swiped to answer and held the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

  
“Want to tell me about last night?” a woman asked.

  
“How about you tell me about it.”

  
She laughed, but it was a harsh, derisive sound. “Had seven middle aged douche bags walk into the P.A. headquarters last night and confess to a whole bunch of awful shit. We searched the house, found their basement demon torture chamber, but no demon. Considering how thorough the mind fuck on them was, it could have only been you and Keith who sent them to us.”

  
“What’s going to happen to the men?”

  
“Well, thanks to everything we found in the house, and the house owners daughter coming in to give a statement before she booked it the hell out of town, we’re going to be prosecuting them for a whole bunch of magical crimes, and I talk to the D.A., they want to pile rape charges onto that too. Now stop evading and tell me what the hell happened to the incubus?”

  
“We banished it. That’s our job.”

  
“You banished the only physically manifested incubus that has ever appeared in this realm. Are you crazy? Do you know how much we could have studied from it?”

  
“It was completely insane Pidge. It had been summoned here and then tortured and raped for months. If it had any sanity when it arrived here, it was destroyed after months of abuse. It had to be banished.”

  
“Maybe next time you and Keith should consult the Preternatural Authority before banishing what could be a valuable asset.”

  
“And maybe the Preternatural Authority could work harder to prevent demon summonings. You didn’t see the condition it was in. Keith and I may be exorcists, but nothing deserves to be treated like that. And after what it went through, turning it over to the P.A. to become a lab rat didn’t seem humane.”

  
Pidge sighed. “We’re not cruel Shiro, we wouldn’t have abused an already abused creature. There are tests we could have done that would have caused no harm. The more we can study and learn about demons, the better equipped we are for exorcising them, banishing them, or stopping them from being summoned in the first place.”

  
“Well it doesn’t matter now. It's been banished.”

  
“Yeah it is, and you also wipe out the knowledge of how they summoned the incubus in the first place. What’s your logic behind that one? They accomplished someone no one else has – we could have used that information even without the incubus itself!”

  
“I didn’t know what kind of action the P.A. would take. If the men walked free, they could have summoned another incubus, the same incubus, or some other demon they could rape and abuse. Even if they were arrested, they could have shared that information with any number of people.”

  
“Or the P.A. could have extracted that information and then wiper the memory. Jesus Shiro, this was an incredible opportunity and you wiped everything away.”

  
“I did what I felt was best.”

  
Pidge was silent for a long time. “Yeah,” she finally said. “And as pissed as I am, I’m glad you guys got it out of there.”

  
Shiro let out a long breath and said nothing.

  
“You guys okay?” Pidge murmured.

  
“Yeah. Was just a pretty awful scene.”

  
“I bet. You guys get some rest, we already deposited your payment into your account. Take a few days off.”

  
“We may need more than a few days. Last night triggered some bad memories.” It wasn’t a lie.

  
“Okay. Keep me updated.” A meow at his feet had Shiro bending down and scooping up the big, insanely fluffy black cat.

  
“Will do.” Shiro ended the call, dropped his phone back into his pocket, then carried the cat back inside.

  
There was no sign of Keith and Lance in the living room, so he walked down the hall and found them in the bedroom just as Keith was finishing re-wrapping the bandages around Lance’s neck.

  
Keith glanced up at him. “All good?”

  
“Yeah, everything’s fine. How’re your injuries Lance?”

  
“They’ve healed a little bit, but not a lot. I will need to feed on more energy for them to heal all the way.” He had his chin tilted up and his eyes closed while Keith finished with the bandages.

  
“You’ll have plenty of time to rest and recover while we work on a way to safely get you home.”

  
Keith finished with the bandages and pulled back. Lance’s eyes cracked open and saw for the first time what Shiro was carrying in his arms. His mouth parted and he stared, transfixed, at the lazily purring cat.

  
“What is that?” he whispered. Shiro looked down at the cat.

  
“This is Black, he’s our cat. He spends the night outside sometimes.”

  
“It’s friendly?”

  
“Yeah, he’s a big softy. Do you want to hold him?”

  
Lance’s slim, spade tail swayed behind him. It was the first time they’d seen his excitement manifest in a such a way. He nodded rapidly and held out his arms. Shiro plopped the massive ball of fur into Lance’s arms, smiling wide when Lance brought the cat to his chest and cradled him ever so gently. He looked down at the cat, up and Shiro and Keith, then back down.

  
“He’s so soft.” Lance bent and rubbed his face into the poofy fur. Black was absolutely loving it, his purring filling the room.

  
“I’m guessing you don’t have pets like this in your realm?” Keith asked.

  
“There are pets, but nothing like this.” Lance yawned wide and closed his eyes, a content smile on his face.

  
Shiro and Keith smiled at each other. “Do you want to take a nap? I don’t think you got a lot of sleep last night, and Black would love to cuddle with you,” Keith said.

  
“You both didn’t sleep much either.”

  
Keith shrugged. “True. Maybe we should take a nap too. Now that we’ve had breakfast I’m feeling a bit sleepy.”

  
“Probably because of the energy I took from you.”

  
“Then let’s all take a long nap. It’ll be good for everyone.”

  
Lance opened his eyes. He looked between them, then at the door, then back down.

  
“Are you... will, uhm, will you sleep somewhere else again?”

  
Shiro stepped forward and sat next to Lance, putting a hand on his back. “Do you want us to stay in here with you while you sleep?”

  
Lance only nodded.

  
“Okay. Well luckily we have this huge bed. All of us can fit no problem if you’re okay with that.”

  
“That’s okay.”

There was a shuffle as Lance laid down and curled up on his side. Black pressed himself right up against Lance’s stomach and purred like a tractor. Keith and Shiro went around to the other side of the bed, Keith opting to be the big spoon – he really liked glomping onto Shiro like an octopus. Eventually the rustling stopped, and Lance’s breathing evened out in minutes.

  
“You talked to Pidge I’m guessing?” Keith whispered as soon as he was sure Lance had fallen asleep.

  
“Yeah.”

  
“And?”

  
“The men are being prosecuted by the P.A. for magical crimes, and by the D.A. for the rape. That guy’s daughter gave a statement and will probably testify.”

  
“What about Lance? Do they suspect?”

  
“Pidge doesn’t suspect anything. She was pissed at me for supposedly banishing what could have been ‘a valuable asset.’ She knows our past with demons. No way she suspects we’re harboring one.”

  
“We’re going to have to be careful. Not only is Lance a physically manifested incubus, he’s sane. We’ve learned more about demons and the demon realm in a few hours than the P.A. has in decades. If they know about him, they’ll want him.”

  
Shiro sighed and nodded. “I know. I told Pidge we’re taking a break for a while, didn’t give her a definitive time. I told her it was because the incident sparked bad memories, which isn’t entirely untrue.”

  
Keith squeezed him tighter. “I didn’t expect him to be so sweet.”

  
“I don't know what I expected, but Lance wasn’t it. I want to help him, and I want to protect him. And I can’t help but wonder what the demon realm is really like. And I want to know why he didn’t go insane traveling here like every other demon apparently has. There are so many questions.”

  
“Yeah. I’m scared to try sending him back. I don’t want to hurt him, but also...” Keith trailed off.

  
“What is it?”

  
“I’m scared of getting attached. This isn’t his realm, he has people he loves back in his home, and it’s not safe for him to stay here, but I'm afraid the longer he stays, the more we aren’t going to want him to leave.”

  
Shiro turned his head back and gave Keith an awkwardly angled kiss. “We’ll work it out. Somehow. For now, we’ll take care of him the best we can.”

  
They fell silent, and eventually fell asleep to the sound of Black’s purring and Lance’s soft, even breaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May not have an update until Monday. We'll see!


	3. Bad dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets some extra help, while anger in the demon realm burns bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: sad themes, very brief/vague suicidal thoughts, discussion of ptsd and past rape
> 
> (P.S. there's going to be a lot more fluff soon!)

Shiro popped awake much like he had earlier that day, except this time, when he opened his eyes, he could directly see the source of the noise.

Black was gone, and Lance had turned over in his sleep so he and Shiro were face to face. He seemed to still be asleep, but his brow was pinched, he was breathing too fast, and small noises of distress were bubbling up from his throat. Shiro was no stranger to nightmares, he could recognize the signs.

Shiro patted Keith’s hand where it was cinched around Shiro’s stomach, and as always, Keith woke in an instant. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on either. He sat up, glanced at the clock beside the bed, then flopped back down. It was only seven in the morning, so they’d been asleep for only about an hour.

With some shuffling and scooching, Shiro got closer to Lance and put an arm around him, pulling him a little closer.

“You’re safe Lance. Wherever your head is taking you, it’s not real,” he whispered. He rubbed his hand over Lance’s back, murmuring little words of comfort, until Lance’s breathing evened out and the pinched expression on his face relaxed. Shiro sighed in relief, slumping back into the pillows, but keeping his arm around Lance. Keith re-situated himself at Shiro’s back and kissed the back of his neck.

“You good?” Keith whispered.

“He’s going to need more help than we can give him.” Keith’s hair tickled the back of Shiro’s neck as he nodded.

“Should we take him to Matt?”

“It would be a risk, but he helped me. Maybe he could help Lance.”

“Think we can trust him to not tell Pidge?”

“If we make sure Lance is established as his patient first.”

A puff of air on the back of his neck made Shiro shiver. Keith laughed and kissed the spot before speaking. “Okay. Let’s sleep a bit more then figure it out later. Hopefully with you holding him, Lance will be able to get some real rest.”

Shiro said nothing. He tried to let himself relax back into sleep, but there were so many things going through his mind.

There was a little jolt at the end of the bed before Black was stepping forward, crawling over Shiro, stepping right on every sensitive spot, and settling into the little bit of space between Shiro and Lance. The cat licked Lance’s hand, kneaded, spun around dozen times, before finally plopping down pressed as tight against Lance’s belly as he could get.

Black’s tractor purring started up, and the last little bit of tension eased from Lance’s body, and that’s what allowed Shiro to finally fall back to sleep.

  
\---

  
At 10am, Lance finally woke up. Keith and Shiro had woken up an hour before, but they’d stayed in bed, turning on Netflix and cuddling up to each other while they let Lance sleep. Despite being awake, neither had been willing to leave Lance alone. He had to be soothed from his nightmares multiple times throughout the morning. He seemed to do a little bit better when Black was cuddled up next to him, but the cat had been coming and going.

But Lance didn’t wake up gently. He bolted upright, displacing Black who had been half on top of him. His breathing was too quick. He panted, shook, looked around but his eyes were unfocused. He looked down at his hands, at his bare arms, and began scrubbing at his exposed skin.

Keith picked his head up off of Shiro’s shoulder and got up and walked slowly to Lance’s side of the bed, keeping his movements slow and non-threatening.

“Hey Lance, it’s okay. We’re here and you’re safe.”

Lance didn’t seem to even hear them. “I have to bathe. I need to get it off me,” he gasped out. He bolted from the bed, stumbling to the bathroom and twisting the shower knob on before Keith or Shiro could stop him.

Keith followed him into the shower, turning off the freezing cold water and grabbing a towel from Shiro’s hands and wrapping Lance up tight. Lance’s eyes remained unfocused, blurring with tears and he struggled against Keith’s arms.

“Lance, look at me please. You’re clean okay? Shiro helped you take a shower yesterday. There’s nothing on you.”

He still breathed too fast. Quick gasping pants puffed out. He was shaking so hard his teeth rattled and he kept mumbling, “I need to wash it off. I need to get it off.”

Shiro stepped up next to them and cupped Lance’s face, stilling the erratic, twitchy movements of his head.

“Lance. Tell me what you can hear okay? What can you hear right now?”

It took a few seconds, but Lance’s frantic muttering slowed, then stopped. He closed his eyes and he closed them tightly.

“That’s it. Tell me what you hear Lance?”

“I hear your voice.” Lance’s voice was hardly even a whisper.

“Who am I?” Shiro asked.

“Shiro.”

“Good. What else can you hear?”

“I can hear your breathing.”

“That’s great. That’s really good Lance. What do you smell?”

Lance took in a deep, deep breath. “I can smell the soap you helped me wash with.”

“Perfect. What else?”

“I can smell Keith, but I’m not sure what the smell is. It just smells like him.”

“That’s the oil he uses to clean his knives. He always smells like that.”

“It’s strange, but I don’t dislike it.”

Keith laughed a little at his side. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“What do you feel Lance?”

“I can feel your pulse through your hand.”

“You’re doing so good. Can you open your eyes for me Lance?” Shiro said. He made sure to use Lance’s name as much as possible, to ground him, to remind him who he was.

Lance’s eyes cracked open. He was met with Shiro’s calm smile. “What do you see Lance?”

“I see you, Shiro.” Lance eyes flicked to the side. “I can see Keith.”

Lance grew calmer with each question. “Where are you Lance?”

“In your house. I’m in the human realm. I’m safe.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, rubbing Lance’s back. “You’re safe.” He grabbed a cup from the counter and filled it with water, handing it over to Lance. Shiro let go of him so Lance could untangle his arms from the towel and take the cup with a shaking hand. He took a few small sips before handing it back. For a moment everything was quiet save for the quiet movie still playing on the TV in the bedroom.

Keith stepped out and grabbed some dry clothes, and once Lance was changed, they all sat back on the bed. Black jumped up and immediately settled on Lance’s lap. Lance scratched him absently, eyes downcast while he searched for something to say.

“I think I interrupted your sleep again,” Lance finally said.

“It’s really not a big deal,” Keith said.

“I heard your voices. I had these dreams, they were so awful. Sometimes I was back in the basement, but other times it was just these horrible images.” Lance grabbed the cat and pulled him to his chest, burying his face in the soft fur. “But then I heard voices talking to me, telling me I was okay, and the dreams went away for a little bit. And then just, I had a dream and it felt so real. I felt like I was really back there and I felt so dirty. I felt like I was still covered with their...” Lance let out a shuddering breath. “Thank you for pulling me out of that.”

Shiro put a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “I understand what it’s like. I had awful dreams and flashbacks after my time with Haggar. I still have them sometimes, but Keith helped me, and so did another person. His name is Matt, and he may be able to help you too.”

“Is he an exorcist too?”

“He’s a psychiatrist,” Keith said. He left out the fact that only one of Matt’s PhD's was in psychiatry. He also worked with the P.A. as a magical researcher and had done psychiatric evaluations on countless demons.

“I don’t know what that is.”

Shiro hesitated, wondering how best to describe it. “It’s someone who can help you deal with the trauma you’ve been through. They study how the mind works and how to help people who may have troubled minds.”

“And you think he can help make the dreams stop?”

“He could help with more than that. The only issue is that no one knows we are harboring a demon, so we need to figure out how to tell him.”

“Would it help if I looked more human?”

“Can you do that?” Keith asked. Lance nodded and his hair began to bleed to a rich brown, his ears shrank and rounded, his horns vanished, and the indent of his tail disappeared beneath the covers. Once done, the only thing that remained of his demon visage was the blue markings underneath his eyes.

“I can’t make the markings go away though,” Lance said once the transformation was complete. Shiro and Keith just stared at him, mouths parted in surprise.

“I, uh,” Shiro cleared his throat. “That’s fine. We can cover them up somehow. Keith, you wanna call Matt and see if he has time today?”

“You want to go today?” Keith asked.

“I think it would be beneficial to get him in as soon as possible.”

“He’s been here for one night. We should let him rest a little more.”

“It’s better for him to see Matt now before things get worse. Trust me, waiting doesn’t make it any better.”

“Okay, then how about the fact that we’re the only kind humans he’s ever met, and you want to drag him out to face more?”

Lance’s head moved back and forth as he watched the argument, his human glamour fading away until he looked like himself again. Neither Shiro or Keith noticed so he looked down, picked up Black and held the cat up so they were face-to-face. “Well Black, if they’re going to have a conversation like I’m not right here, maybe you and I should have our own conversation too. What do you think?”

Black meowed and reached out, batting at Lance’s cheek with his claws sheathed. Lance nodded in response.

“I agree, they should ask me what I want to do instead of arguing.”

Black meowed again so Lance put him down and looked up at the two men who were now silent and looking properly chastised.

“That was rude and we’re sorry,” Shiro said.

Lance smiled and looked down again. “I get it. And I... I don’t,” he took a deep breath. “I’m not sure if I want to meet another human right now.”

“Okay, then we’ll wait until you’re ready,” Keith said, simple as that.

  
\---

  
It took two days for Lance to be ready to leave the house. He ate a lot, took small sips of energy from Shiro and Keith, and the blackened wounds on his wrists, ankles, and neck, were slowly beginning to heal. The mental wounds, however, weren’t getting any better. Lance couldn’t go more than a couple hours of sleep without a nightmare, and the flashbacks and manic episodes continued throughout the day. He was completely comfortable with Shiro and Keith, but when some church recruiter knocked on the door, it sent Lance into a panic. It was after that when he finally asked to go see Matt.

Lance was huddled in the back seat of Shiro’s SUV with Keith. He looked mostly human, but had some thin, opaque bandages on his face to cover the blue markings. He also had Black on his lap in the car because the cat helped him to stay calm – luckily Black was one of those adventurous cats that liked to go anywhere and everywhere.

“Will there be a lot of humans?” Lance asked.

“People, remember? Call them people,” Keith reminded him. “And no. Matt said there won’t be anyone but him around. The only other people we may see will be in the elevator.”

Lance nodded but didn’t respond.

“We’re going to be with you the whole way up. We’ll only be out of your sight when you’re talking to Matt, but we’ll only be on the other side of the door.”

“Okay.”

The rest of the ride was silent, and they were lucky when they got to the five story office building that no one else was around. They made it up to Matt’s office without encountering another person.

The building Matt worked out of was rather posh, funded entirely by the P.A. but kept separate from the main P.A. headquarters. He didn’t take regular patients – most of Matt’s focus was on research – but he had provided psychiatric counseling to Shiro and was willing to help out friends when needed.

Matt was waiting in the reception area, tall and wiry with long, orangey-brown curls and a pair of round glasses perched on his face. His posture was relaxed and non-threatening, and when the trio walked in he made no movement towards them. He stood on the opposite side of the room with a gentle smile on his face. He didn’t acknowledge Shiro or Keith, focusing entirely on Lance.

“Hi, you must be Lance. My name’s Matt.”

Lance inclined his head and held on tightly to Black. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, mimicking the phrase he’d been taught for when humans introduced themselves to each other.

“I know you’re probably nervous, so we don’t have to start immediately if you’re not ready to leave Shiro and Keith.”

When Keith called Matt, he’d stuck as close to the truth as possible when detailing the situation. He told him that Lance was a rape victim and had been confined for an extended period of time. He also told Matt that Lance had no family or friends who were able to support him, so they were taking him in to help while he recovered from the incident.

“I think I’m ready. Can I keep Black with me?”

“Of course you can. I haven’t seen Black in forever, do you mind bringing him over so I can pet him a bit?”

Lance nodded and walked over. Matt reached out, keeping his motions smooth and slow, and he smiled while he scratched Black’s head.

“Alright. How about we head inside, but you don’t have to worry. If at any time you feel overwhelmed and need to stop, just let me know. Shiro and Keith will be waiting right outside so if they make you feel more comfortable we can bring them.”

“Okay.”

Matt opened the door to his office and motioned Lance inside. The incubus looked behind at Shiro and Keith, and walked in only after getting a reassuring nod from them both. Matt gave them both a nod and followed after, closing the door behind him.

Shiro and Keith sat on the couch in the reception area, not saying much, just pressed close to each other's side and holding hands.

It was an hour before the door opened and Matt came out, sans Lance, closing the door behind. The pleasant expression on his face dropped and he marched over. The pair stood up and just waited.

“You two do realize that Pidge and I talk right? I work for the P.A., and she tells me a lot of the shit that goes down. Did you think I wouldn’t realize? Did you think I wouldn’t find it odd that hey, two days after Shiro and Keith banish an incubus who had been summoned, confined, and raped for months, they bring in a boy that had also, coincidentally, been confined and raped for months. Or that I wouldn’t notice how he doesn’t seem to understand a lot of euphemisms, or much of anything about the world around him?” Matt ranted, but his voice was just an angry whisper.

Shiro shrugged. “We expected you to find out eventually.”

Matt glared at him, understanding flashing across his face. “But you wanted him to be my patient first. You figured that if I accepted him as a patient, I wouldn’t tell Pidge about him.”

“Pretty much. Is it working?” Keith asked.

“You damn well know it’s working you ass holes. Lance needs a hell of a lot of support and care, from both me and you guys. It’s not exactly a secret that he is severely traumatized and surrendering him to the P.A. will be a huge detriment to his mental health. So yeah, I’m not going to tell Pidge. But this is a cluster fuck, you know that right?”

The pair of them sighed. “Yeah, we know. I’m sorry Matt but we didn’t know what else to do. Like you said, he needs help, and he doesn’t need to be a P.A. experiment,” Shiro said.

Matt huffed. “I have so many questions that I can’t ask him right now too. Do you have any idea why he’s sane?”

“Apparently, demons are all sane until they’re summoned here. According to Lance, something about being summoned from their world to this one drives them mad. He said that when we banish them, most of the time they are dead on arrival. If they aren’t dead, he says they usually have to kill them because there’s not a shred of sanity left.”

Matt gaped at them, then sat heavily on the couch. “If that’s true then that literally changes everything.” He pulled his glasses off his face and scrubbed at his eyes. He took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “So if that’s the case, why is Lance not batshit crazy too? He was summoned, and then he was practically tortured. If anything, he should be even more insane than the others.”

“We don’t know for sure, but we have a theory,” Keith said hesitantly.

“And what’s your theory?”

“Lance has made some comments, and if I had to guess, I’d say he’s some sort of demon royalty.”

“Royalty...” Matt said.

“Yeah. He also said that his sister is one of the most powerful demons alive. If our theory is correct, she’s probably some sort of queen, or the demon equivalent of it.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that some disgusting middle-aged fuckups somehow managed to summon a demon prince and then tortured him for months. That’s what you’re saying?”

Shiro sighed. “Yeah.”

“Which means that now the demons will have a personal vendetta against humans and our world. Humanity has made a personal enemy of some sort of demon queen by essentially kidnapping her brother. If demons find a way to get to this world without being summoned, if they decide to take this out on humanity, I’m not sure what our chances of winning would be.”

Shiro looked down at his enchanted arm. It was hidden beneath his jacket and a leather glove, but Matt knew it was there. “They’ve already found a way. Lance said that Haggar wasn’t summoned here. She found her way to our realm on her own. They may already be working to figure out how she did it.”

“If that’s the case then we are in deep shit, and we better keep Lance from coming to any more harm, and find a way to get him safely back to his world. Haggar decimated half a city before we could stop her, and we only stopped her because she didn’t expect the enchantments she gave you to be used against her – I would really hate to see what a demon queen would do to avenge a family member.”

“Can you start working on that?” Keith asked.

“Yeah. I don’t think I really have a choice. Since we aren’t telling the P.A. about a potentially imminent attack by a demon queen, then I'd better find a way to fix this. But whatever. This is all fucked up, but right now let's focus on Lance and his mental state.

  
“His PTSD is manifesting a little different than your Shiro, but helping him is a similar concept. He’s told me a bit about what you’ve been doing to help him, and that’s all great. You can push him, little bits at a time, but for the most part let him dictate when he wants to do something. It seems like he’s gotten a little attached to Black and is using the cat as a security blanket, which is okay for now as long as it helps him feel safe, but as I keep working with him I'm going to try and urge him to leave the cat at home. This isn’t going to be a quick process. Now, let’s get him out here and let him know that I know he’s a demon. It’ll be easier for me to work with him if he doesn’t have to keep secrets.”

“We’ll do the best we can,” Keith said. Matt stood up, but paused before going to the door.

“One last thing,” he said. “Lance talks about you two with a lot of fondness. He’s really attached, so I need to know, have you guys told him you’re married? Does he understand marriage? He’s sleeping in your bed, he likes you both very much, and I would assume in the future he might need to feed on sexual energy. I would advise you both think hard about what your relationship with him is, and what you want it to be. If you want to keep him from developing unwanted feelings for you, then set boundaries now. And don’t mistake this as me telling you to never form a romantic bond with him – if that’s what you all want, and if you two think you can make it an equal relationship, then it’s not my business. Just don’t give him false hope if it’s not what you want.”

Matt didn’t give them a chance to respond. He went over to the door and opened it, the calm smile pasted back on his face.

“You feeling okay to come out now?” Matt asked. Shiro and Keith heard a sniffle.

“You left him alone in there crying?” Keith tried to whisper, but it came out louder than he anticipated. Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

“I left him alone to compose himself, at his own request,” Matt said. The look he gave Keith was annoyed, but his voice stayed soft and even for Lance’s benefit.

Lance came shuffling out a moment later, Black in his arms again. He walked straight to Shiro and Keith, but then just stood there, as if not sure what to do.

Shiro put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked softly. Lance smiled and nodded.

“Okay, then there’s something we need to tell you. Don’t be scared alright, remember, we’re going to keep you safe and no one is going to hurt you.”

“Is something wrong?” Lance shifted from foot to foot.

“No,” Matt said. “Nothing’s wrong. We just want to let you know that I’m aware of what you are Lance, and it’s okay. I’m not going to tell anyone, and I’m going to keep helping you.”

“You know I'm an incubus?”

“I do.”

“Oh. Then can I take the bandages off my face? They aren’t comfortable.” Everyone let out a quiet breath, relieved by Lance’s calm reaction.

Matt laughed. “Maybe wait until you get back home. I was thinking that you and I should talk twice a week. One day I can come over to your house, and another day you can come here. Does that sound okay?”

“That’s fine.”

“Great. Just remember what we talked about, and you can call me whenever you need. Shiro and Keith are going to get you a cell phone so you can stay in contact. Next time we meet, you can be more honest with me now that I know you’re a demon, okay?”

Lance nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

Matt waved them off, and they made it back to the car without issue. The drive back was mostly silent until they were pulling into the driveway.

“I think it was a good idea to go see him,” Lance said.

“Matt’s a good person. He helped me a lot in the past.”

As soon as they were in the house, Lance set the cat down and peeled the bandaids off of his face and let his glamour drop. He took a deep breath, then turned to face Shiro and Keith. “You know I didn’t used to be like this.”

“Like what?” Keith asked.

Lance waved a hand. “I don’t know, scared all the time? Timid... I told you not much is expected of incubi, but I trained with other demons. I decided I'd be strong so I worked hard, and I'm skilled with magic, all kinds of weapons – my sister is powerful, but so am I. I was capable and smart and talented, and people liked me, but I don’t feel like that anymore! I don’t feel powerful anymore.”

Shiro looked at Keith, unsure of where the outburst was coming from. “I get it,” he said. “I really do.”

“Okay. I just, I think... I think I just want you guys to know that I wasn’t always like this. Matt told me to be honest with you about what I feel, so I'm being honest. I don’t know why, but I don’t want you guys to think I'm weak. I’ve fought in a war, I've nearly died... but I feel different now.”

Keith couldn’t help but step forward and wrap Lance in a hug. Lance hugged him back immediately, melting into the embrace and pressing his face into Keith’s shoulder.

“You’ve been through something that no one should ever have to go through, but you’re not weak. Neither one of us thinks you’re weak,” Keith said.

“And it’s only been a few days since we found you. I know it’s not easy, but you need to give yourself time to heal, physically and mentally,” Shiro said from beside them.

“That’s what Matt said. I just want to be myself again though.”

“You will be,” Shiro promised.

Lance pulled away from Keith and smiled wanly. “Thank you. I needed that hug.”

“Any time,” Keith said genuinely.

“I think I would like to take a shower. I don’t need any help, I know how to work it now.”

“Okay. I’m going to head out and get you some clothes so you don’t have to keep wearing our stuff, and I’ll get you a phone, but Keith’s going to be here in case you need something okay?”

Lance nodded and walked straight into the bathroom and shut the door. When the shower was on he pulled his clothes off, unwrapped all the various bandages, stepped under the hot spray, and then sunk to the ground. He pulled his knees up to his chest and let the spray wash away the fat tears falling from his eyes.

“Allura,” he whispered through a sob. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” And Lance wasn’t quite sure if “here” meant the human realm, or if it meant living in general.

  
\----

  
Allura stood to the side, overseeing workers as they fit a massive crystal into the casing of the portal array being built The massive structure gleamed with the bright white stone and the various magics being fed into it.

The workers all scurried around at a frenetic pace, casting nervous glances at Allura every few seconds. The queen was in battle form, standing well over seven feet tall. The pink of her eyes had eclipsed the sclera, glowing with the power that pulsed within her. The ends of her hands ended in wicked, black, talon-like claws, motes of light energy sparking between them. The air around her was charged, too bright, hard to look at for more than a brief moment, the scent of her acrid, angry magic filling the space.

_“Allura,”_ a small, broken voice whispered through her mind. _“I don’t want to be here anymore.”_

Her anger hit a crescendo, the very earth around her trembled, the deep rumbling sending everyone into a panic as they tried to get away from her, to get away from the bright, burning light billowing out, pulsing, beginning to scorch her surroundings.

“My love,” a soft voice said. She didn’t even turn to look at her bonded mate, the anger was too bright, too all-encompassing. Lotor stepped closer, immune to his bonded’s magic. Motes of black and yellow chaos energy pinged around him, random and unpredictable, as chaotic as the magic’s namesake.

“Let me take you away from here so you can release your anger.”

Allura only nodded. She wasn’t sure if she could speak at that moment.

Lotor’s chaos magic surrounded them, the dizzying swirls obscuring them until the pair vanished, magic whizzing them away across time and space until they landed in a barren, uninhabited part of their world.

“Let it go my love,” Lotor murmured. Allura threw her head back and screamed. Her magic burst out of her in a blinding flare of light. The earth quaked and groaned around them. Rock shattered and the air burned. As Allura screamed, her magic spread further and further, destroying everything in its path until finally, she closed her mouth. The light slowly, ever so slowly, faded, drawing back and back, until it disappeared.

She stood there panting, a crater of her creation stretching out and out, stretching further than a human eye sure could see. The earth was flattened, scorched, ruined in the aftermath of Allura’s anger.

“He’s calling out to me, Lotor. He’s suffering.”

“We will get him back.”

Allura finally looked at him. Lotor’s eyes glowed an eerie yellow, his own anger making his magic difficult to control.

“We’ve ignored humanity’s indiscretions for too long. I will burn their world to the ground for hurting him.”

Lotor only nodded. His magic swirled again, and the chaos energy whisked them back to the construction of the portal. Workers had resumed their activities, and Allura resumed her vigil over them.

“I’m coming,” she whispered, hoping Lance could somehow hear her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter coming tomorrow or Thursday!
> 
> Thank you all soooo much for the love and support this fic is getting. Your comments mean the world to me!
> 
> Also, I promise a whole bunch of fluff is coming soon!! Like, tooth rotting fluff.


	4. Road trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Keith learn a little bit more about Allura before they all take a small road trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No TW for this chapter!

** 4 **

“That person kind of looks like  Lotor .” Lance sat bundled up in blankets on the couch. Black was somewhere beneath them all snuggled up to Lance like he usually was recently. The cat barely even acknowledged Keith or Shiro anymore.  After just under two weeks with Lance, Black had officially abandoned them. 

Lance was transfixed by the movie, and hadn’t taken his eyes away from the TV ever since Shiro had explained how it worked and what a movie was. 

“Who?” Keith asked. 

“The blonde one.”

“Legolas?” 

Lance nodded. “Not the coloring though,  Lotor’s hair is white like mine, and his skin is lilac colored.”

“And who is Lotor?”

“He’s my sister’s bonded.” 

Shiro grabbed the remote and paused the movie. “What does that mean? Her bonded?”

Lance quirked his head to the side as if confused. “It’s what you and Keith are. It is the person or persons you love and bind yourself too. I’m guessing that’s not what it’s called here?”

Keith sat up from where he’d been slumped against Shiro. The pair exchanged a glance, then looked at Lance. They seemed to do that a lot. 

“Here we call it marriage, but how did you know we were married?”

Lance actually laughed and shook his head , staring at them incredulously until he realized they were actually seriously asking that question . “You share a house, you share a bed, you hold hands, kiss, cuddle, spend all your time with each other, and I assume you had sex with each other before I came here. You also wear matching rings on your left hand. That is not how bonded  are identifi ed in my realm, but I just assumed the rings were how bonded were identified here. Was I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong, we’re married. We just weren’t sure how to explain it to you. We didn’t know if marriage was a thing in your world.”

“It is.  Lotor and Allura bonded after the war. A lot of demons have more than one bonded, but Allura didn’t want anyone but him. He’s...” Lance stopped and bit his lip. 

“What’s wrong? Is he not a good person?” Shiro asked. 

Lance shook his head. “He’s an amazing person. He loves my sister, and he is family to me... but he’s, uhm, he’s Haggar’s son...” Lance looked down as soon as he said it. 

The room was silent and heavy with tension. Lance shrunk in on himself, wondering if it was a mistake to tell them. He knew what Haggar had done to Shiro, sort of. He didn’t really know details, just that he’d been her captive once a long time ago, but Lance wasn’t sure how deep the trauma still ran. He was beginning to trust Shiro and Keith, but he was always afraid that something he said or did would break the tenuous relationship and he would be killed, or banished, which would be a death sentence in its own right. 

Lance flinched at the sharp intake of air from Shiro. “I assume he wasn’t allied with her,” Shiro said, voice a bit  strained . 

“ Lotor served under her once, but broke his ties with her and helped us in the war. He was already bonded with Allura by the time Haggar found a way into the human realm. He’s a chaos demon but he’s not bad, he didn’t want anything to do with Haggar. We’re not like she was, I promise.” Lance’s breath started getting too fast again. If Shiro and Keith stopped helping him, he didn’t know where to go. The only other human he knew was Matt, but humans hated Haggar and Matt might hate him too if he knew  Lotor was a part of Lance’s family. 

Lance flinched when someone sat beside him, but  rela x ed quickly when Keith put an arm around him. 

“It’s okay Lance, we’re not mad. We didn’t even know Haggar had a son. It just took us by surprise.”

“Can you tell me what she did? I mean I know what she did to Shiro, but I don’t know what else she did.”

Shiro sighed. “I’m not sure what her grand scheme was. She was working up to something – I wasn’t the only human she was experimenting on, I’m just the only one of her experiments that was successful. Lance, you said she waged  war on your family as well, right?”

“Yes,  but Allura’s magic overloaded when she learned that our parents fell, and that I nearly died. The power surge wiped out an entire battlefield of Haggar’s troops, forcing her to flee and go into hiding. We learned about her attempts to enter the human realm when a demon she’d been experimenting on escaped. By the time our soldiers made it to where she’d been hiding, she was already gone.”

“How many people died in your sister’s power surge?” Keith asked. 

“I don’t know exactly. Thousands.”

Keith shuddered. “Wow.”

Shiro cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Then I guess since she failed to take over your world, she was maybe trying to take over ours instead? Maybe she was trying to make humans into soldiers that would fight for her... I don’t know, but sounds like she wasn’t very good at keeping hold of us,” Shiro laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “When I  escaped she escalated her plans and wiped out  twenty square miles of a city, leveled the entire area until there was nothing but burnt earth.” 

“I’m s o s orry,” Lance whispered. “We searched for her, we really did.” 

“I’m sure you all did. What she did isn’t your fault,” Shiro said firmly. 

Keith bit his lip, unsure how to ask the question he wanted to ask without. Lance had relaxed again, but Keith couldn’t shake what he’d said earlier. 

“Your sister...” he started, “does she know how Haggar made it to our realm?”

“She was never interested in  Haggar’s research. Demons usually don’t want anything to do with humans , and Haggar’s research was completely indecipherable – no one wanted to take the time to figure it out . ”

“Do you think she’ll be interested now that you’re here?”

Lance looked up at them, and there was something unsettling about the  wariness in his eyes. 

“Yes, and I think it would be a very bad thing if she found her way here.” Lance knew that if Allura made it to the human realm, she would look to kill anything who had hurt him, and she might blame humanity as a whole. Lance hadn’t told Shiro and Keith the whole truth about what happened to Haggar’s troops. He did a quick calculation, recalling what they'd taught him about how much a mile was. If Haggar destroy  twenty square miles, then Allura had destroyed nearly ten times that with one power surge during the war. With the help of  Lotor’s chaos magic and his ability to teleport, if Allura made it to the human world, she could decimate it in days. 

For his own safety, Lance resolved himself to never tell anyone that information. If anyone thought Allura was a threat and realized Lance was her weakness, he  c ould become a target if she invaded . 

The silence that followed Lance’s statement seemed so very loud .

“In the area Haggar destroyed,” Lance said softly after the silence became uncomfortable, “is the land tainted?” 

“Yeah. The P.A. hasn’t been able to cleanse it. Nothing will grow there anymore,” Keith said. 

Lance nodded slowly. “She used corrosion magic. She could corrode the land as easily as she could corrode the mind. I always wonder if it was her own magic that drove her insane.” Lance took a deep breath. “Can you take me there?”

Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed. “You want to go to the place she destroyed?”

“Yes, if that’s possible.”

“It’s a few hours away, but we can go there if you feel up to it. May I ask why?”

“I just think I need to see it,” Lance hedged. Considering the look Keith and Shiro gave him, they didn’t quite believe him, but they also didn’t argue. 

“Well it’s still morning, so we can go today if that’s what you want.  But it might be too long of a trip to take Black.”

Lance peeled back layers of blankets to expose the happily purring cat on his lap. He scratched behind Black’s ears and was silent for a moment. 

“That’s okay.” He’d never actually left the house without Black, but Lance was smart enough to know he couldn’t keep taking the cat around with him everywhere he went. 

“Okay, let’s all get dressed and we can go.”

\---

The car trip was comfortably silent for the first leg of the journey. No one was talking, but it wasn’t the same pregnant silence it had been earlier back at the house. 

After an hour of staring out the window, watching the human city fade away into unpopulated wilderness, Lance turned to looked at Keith who was driving. Shiro sat in the back seat so Lance could have a better view out the front. He wasn’t using his glamour – it wasn’t needed thanks to the dark tinting on Shiro’s SUV. 

“Can you explain to me how your marriage thing works? What’s involved in a such a thing?” Lance asked. 

Shiro leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Well, I mean generally humans date each other before ever getting married...”

“Is that like courting?” Lance interrupted. 

“Maybe? I know what courting means, but I’m not sure what it means to demons. But dating is basically where you spend time together, go out and do things together, sometimes be intimate with each other, but without a permanent commitment. But not every  dates with the intent to get married.”

“Okay I think I understand. What happens after dating?”

“On person will usually propose to the other and give them something called an engagement ring. If the other person says yes, they’re then engaged.”

“I see, which is like, the intent to be married?”

“Exactly,” Shiro said with a smiled. 

“ So which one of you proposed?” Lance asked. 

Keith smirked. “I did. Shiro cried.”

Lance laughed. “That’s very sweet. So what do you do for the marriage ritual?”

“Well we call it a ceremony,” Keith said. “Ritual sounds... a bit odd to humans. But  basically you have a person who will officiate the ceremony, someone who is legally able to do it. You wear fancy clothes, say vows in front of all your friends and family, then sign a marriage certificate and that’s it.”

Lance waited, looking between the two, and when they didn’t keep  going he cocked his head to the side. “And what about the soul exchange?”

Keith looked over at him before turning his eyes back to the road. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“To complete the bond? You don’t exchange soul fragments?”

“There’s usually no magic or anything like that involved in human marriage. Basically it’s just a legal document you sign to be recognized as a married couple. What is a soul exchange?”

Lance looked utterly puzzled. “To become bonded in my realm, you undergo a ritual where each party exchanges a piece of their soul. Demons take in a piece of the soul of each of their partners, and gives a piece of their soul to each partner in return. It allows bonded to become immune to the magic of their bonded mate or mates, and it connects their minds, their bodies, and their souls.”

“So then what happens if bonded demons want to break up? Can the bond be broken?”

Lance was horrified. “Why would anyone want to break their bond?”

“I mean with humans, sometimes marriage doesn’t work out so they get a divorce and will no longer be married,” Shiro said. 

“I’ve never heard of a demon desiring to break the tie with their bonded one. It’s not a union we enter into lightly, and it’s precious. I can’t imagine bonded mates ever breaking their bond. Will you and Shiro someday break your bond?” Lance’s eyes were wide as he tried to comprehend such a thing. 

Shiro chuckled and gave Keith a fond look. “No. Keith and I didn’t marry each other lightly either, and I have no intention of ever not being married to him.”

Keith pressed his lips together to repress his smile, and Lance visibly deflated with relief. 

“How long have you been bon... I mean married. Not bonded. How long have you been married?”

“Coming up on five years,” Keith said. 

“Do you mind if I ask another question?”

“Go ahead,” Shiro replied. 

“When you talk about marriage, you only refer to couples. Do humans only marry one other person?”

“Well I mean  legally we’re only allowed to marry one other person. The government doesn’t let you marry more than one.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know honestly. There are a lot of people out there who would probably like t o marry more than one person, but they can’t.”

Lance sunk into his seat and absorbed that information. “That’s sad,” he said quietly. 

Shiro put a hand on Lance’s shoulder and squeezed. “It is a little sad, but even with the law, people will  still  have multiple partners, but never get married. There’s no law against dating multiple partners for the rest of your life. They don’t get the legal benefits of being married, but they still get to be with the people they love.”

“Well that’s nice then,” Lance murmured, but he ducked his head to try and hide the redness on his cheeks. If Shiro and Keith noticed, they didn’t say anything. 

Silence descended again, and Lance felt his shoulder was a little too warm where Shiro had touched him, but he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. 

They ended up chatting off and on for the rest of the trip, but fell silent when they drew nearer to the devastation Haggar’s attack had caused. Lance could feel it around him, the familiar, draining corrosive magic that Haggar had wielded. It soaked the ground, corroding away anything living. 

“Can we go to the epicenter?” Lance said in a near whisper. 

“Yeah.” Keith’s voice was equally quiet when he answered.

Keith drove them over the barren landscape to where Haggar had stood when she destroyed it  all. He and Lance opened their doors to get out, but Shiro didn’t move. Keith looked back at him through the open car door and opened his mouth to say something, but Shiro held up a hand. 

“I just need a second. I’ll be out in a sec.” 

Keith simply nodded and closed his door, then walked around the car to stand next to Lance who stood with his arms wrapped around his stomach, taking everything in. He wore a simple blue and grey  henley shirt, and some simple jeans Shiro had gotten him. Lance wasn’t overly fond of the clothes, and they seemed to clash with his otherworldly appearance, but at the same time it was a little endearing to see him trying to adjust to casual human clothing. Keith felt himself smiling as he observed Lance, and became puzzled in the next moment when a warm feeling swept through him. He almost felt like how he did when looking at Shiro. 

“So much destruction...” Lance mumbled. “And for what? I don’t understand the purpose of all this.” He hugged himself a little tighter. 

“I don’t think it’s something you and I can understand.”

The car door opened behind them and Shiro stepped out, looking outwardly calm, but there was a tightness around his eyes. He didn’t look at them, instead his eyes swept over the land. 

“Why did you want to come here Lance?” 

“Incubi... we have talents other than sex. That’s not the only thing we’re good at.”

Shiro finally looked at him. “We never thought that, at all.”

Lance nodded. “I can, well, I think I can help the land here. I may be able to clear away Haggar’s corrosion magic.”

“The P.A. has brought in teams of mages who haven’t been able to do anything. I’m not doubting you, but this is a huge task.”

Lance gripped the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head, then unbuttoned and dropped his jeans. Keith exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Shiro, but neither moved to stop him. 

“It’s a good thing I'm the most powerful incubus in my world.” Lance looked over his shoulder at them and grinned, naked save for the bandages, and a tight black pair of briefs. The blue of Lance’s irises expanded, growing, swallowing up the whites of his sclera as they began glowing a bright blue. The markings beneath his eyes glowed as well, and the air around him grew cold. 

Lance took in a deep breath, his eyes blazed and the crisp, watery scent of his magic washed over them all. Motes of blue magic coalesced around his body and billowed out – Shiro and Keith could hardly breath through the strength of the magic saturating the air around Lance. 

The blue motes grew, expanded, then dove into the ground and disappeared. For a moment, silence. Not even the wind dared breath. 

“Holy shit,” Keith breathed, reaching out to grasp Shiro’s hand. Around them, farther than they could see even with their magically enhanced vision, motes of sickly, purple-black magic rose up from the ground around them. It rose up, streams of it, a seemingly endless tide of corrosion magic leaving the land. 

Lance raised a hand and all the corrosion magic swirled towards him, twenty miles of it, racing towards him, into his hand, disappearing into his body as he absorbed, and absorbed, and absorbed, taking the tainted magic into his own body and riding the land of it. 

Shiro and Keith were breathless, motionless, able to do nothing except watch Lance absorb the magic that had rendered this land barren for years. The streams of it going into his body seemed endless, until it wasn’t. As abruptly as the magic had begun racing into Lance, it was done. For the first time, the very air in this area didn’t feel oppressive and sickly. 

A long, slow breath left Lance and his eyes slipped shut.

“Keith?” he whispered. The name snapped Keith from his daze and he stepped forward, wanting to grab onto Lance and make sure he was okay, but unsure if it would interrupt whatever Lance may be doing. 

“I’m here.”

“Your magic, it’s fire based?”

“Yeah, how did you know that?” 

Lance  laughed, eyes still closed. “Can you take my hand?” He said without answering the question. 

Keith didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and grabbed Lance’s hand. 

“I’ve cleared out Haggar’s magic, but the land still needs to be cleansed. I need to borrow your fire.”

“Okay. What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to summon your magic, and then let me take it. You’ll feel me tugging at it, like when I take energy from you. Don’t resist, please let me take it. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

“I trust you,” was all Keith replied. He felt for that fiery core in his middle, and summoned his magic to the surface. As soon as the red motes appeared around him, he felt a tug, and his first instinct was to tug back, to not let anyone take his magic. 

“It’s okay Keith,” Shiro said from behind him. Keith released a breath, and with that breath released his hold on the magic. It was a strange feeling, having his magic pulled out of him, but the oddness didn’t matter as the ground around them went up in flames. Lance added his own blue motes of magic to Keith’s, and the flames burned low, hot, turning from the orangey red to a simmering deep blue. 

The fire raced out like a flash fire, skating across the ground, a circle of blue fire expanding outward, outward, and Keith could feel it. Could feel it as the flames sunk into the earth, cleansing, until they reached the end of the destruction. 

Just like that, the pull on his magic stopped. Keith sucked in a breath. He felt fine. His magic was still burning strong in his core. 

“That was incredible,” Shiro breathed, stepping up so he could get closer to Lance and Keith. 

Lance’s eyes opened and he smiled. 

“There might be one more thing I can do. Shiro, with that enchantment on your arm, it  let’s you control many different types of magic, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of magic do you have stored?”

Shiro’s eyebrows quirked down, but he didn’t ask questions before pulling a case out of his pocket. With a little zap of magic, the seal on the case opened to reveal hundreds of different colored pearls. Lance looked entranced, an astonished smile on his face. 

“May I?” Lance asked. Shiro nodded and handed over the tin without hesitation. Lance stared at the pearls for a few minutes, then reached in a plucked out a deep green one. He handed the case back to Shiro, who locked it and dropped it back into his pocket. 

I need you to activate this,” Lance said, handing the pearl to Shiro. “I can’t activate stored magic like that, I can only draw on another person’s magic to use it.”

“What are you going to do?” Shiro asked, but he had already pulled off the glove on his right hand, which Keith took automatically, then shrugged off his jacket. 

Lance just smiled and stepped closer as Shiro placed the green pearl in his exposed enchanted hand. Shiro crushed the pearl between his fingers, and the cracks on his blackened arm pulsed with purple light. 

Deep green magic billowed out, and Lance moved forward to cup Shiro’s extended hand with both of his own. 

“Please let me take it,” Lance asked, the smile still on his face. Shiro simply nodded, and didn’t fight when he felt the tugging. 

Lance pulled on the magic, sending it out until a blanket of green nature magic covered every inch of the destroyed land. Keith and Shiro were so preoccupied watching the magic billow out, they didn’t notice Lance shaking. 

In one quick move, the motes of magic descended into the dirt. There was a pause, then the scent of grass, new growth, fresh soil, and flowers wafted around them. Before their eyes, buds of life broke through the ground – there was grass, tree saplings, flower buds. Life emerged from the landscape, and when the tug on Shiro’s magic dropped, a carpet of green stretched out into the horizon.

“Lance this is incredible! I never would have thought this was possible.” Shiro looked down at Lance, a grin on his face, just in time to watch Lance’s eyes flutter shut and catch him as he collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me longer than anticipated to get this one out. Work was a shit show last week. Like, nothing bad happened, so don't worry. It was just frustrating.


	5. The mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura finds a way to communicate with Lance. 
> 
> Everyone pushes Keith and Shiro into acknowledging their feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll have been so patient with me, so I give you this offering. Enjoy ;)
> 
> Edit: OMG I'm an idiot, I posted this yesterday and left out an entire opening scene with Matt. I added it back now!

Matt sat down on the overstuffed chair in the living room and ran a hand through his hair, multiple times. 

“I don’t know what you guys expect from me. I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“You went through med  school didn’t you?” Keith snapped. 

Matt scowled at him. “Yeah where I specialized in psychiatry, and even if I had gone to become a regular medical doctor, we didn’t learn how to treat demons! His physiology is completely different than a human’s.”

Shiro gave a warning look to Keith before focusing back on Matt. “Can you give us your best guess?”

“My best guess is exactly what you guys already guessed. Lance was starved for months, and he’s still not getting the proper food he needs. Imagine if you had been starved for weeks and then went on to try and run twenty miles. You would not have the energy reserves to make it through that. Lance did not have the energy reserves to do such a tremendous magical feat, demon royalty or not.”

“We didn’t know what he was going to do when we took him there,” Shiro said with a sigh. 

“I’m not blaming you two. Was it stupid? Yeah. Did it draw a shit ton of unwanted attention? Yeah. But it was also a fucking miracle, and Lance isn’t a child. He likely knew the repercussions and did it anyways, and it’s not your job to control what he does. I’m pretty sure he’d resent the hell out of you for that. All I'm saying is that I don’t know how to help him. He needs sexual energy, and it’s not really an option to get a stranger in here for him to have sex with considering he’s in hiding, and currently unconscious.”

Shiro and Keith visibly bristled as soon as Matt mentioned finding someone for Lance to have sex with, and being as observant as he was, Matt noticed the reaction immediately. He narrowed his eyes and stood up, fixing them both with a none-to-please glare. 

“You guys need to get your shit together. If you don’t like the idea of him sleeping with someone else to get the energy he literally needs to survive, then step the fuck up. Now I’m going to go – call me when he wakes up.” 

Matt walked out, leaving a gaping Shiro and Keith to stare after him in stunned silence. It took a good minute for them to pull themselves together enough to process what had just happened. 

“I’m going to go check on Lance,” Keith muttered, getting up and walking into the bedroom. It had been twenty-four hours since Lance had cleansed the barren land Haggar had destroyed, and he still hadn’t woken up. They’d called Matt in desperation, hoping he could do something, and now with that hope crushed they just had to wait. 

* * *

“My love, we have it ready,” Lotor said, taking her hand to draw her gaze away from the portal array being built. 

“Will it work?” 

“The druids are certain. As long as Lance is near a reflective surface, you’ll be able to see him and hopefully communicate with him.” 

“Right.” Allura turned to walk back inside the castle. Servants and nobles alike scrambled to get out of her way – their once kind and personable queen was now angry, destructive, only able to control her furious magic with the help of the king. 

The chamber Allura walked into was circular with a high, domed ceiling and crystals imbedded into the walls with wire-like connectors swooping down, winding across the floor, all connecting to the crystals imbedded into the trim of a gilded mirror standing in the center of the room. 

Allura walked up and stood in front the mirror, staring at her reflection, waiting. When nothing happened, she snapped her gaze to the nearest druid. 

“Start it!” she barked. Allura had no patience left after losing Lance, everyone around her was incompetent. No one could fucking tell her how she could safely get her brother back and she wanted to scream. She wanted to tear everything apart. She wanted to rip down the very barriers between worlds, destroy time and space itself if it meant saving Lance from whatever torment he was enduring at human hands. 

The druids scrambled, twelve of them fanning out to stand at control crystals set in even intervals along the perimeter of the room. As one, they placed their hands on the crystals. A low hum began in the room and hundreds of crystals in the chamber began to glow. The glow slowly spread down the wire-like connections, inching towards the mirror. 

The light hit the crystals on the mirror and the hum grew louder. The room brightened, the light grew, and the image of Allura in the mirror washed away as the reflective surface picked up the glow. Allura stepped forward, breath catching. The mirror was still nothing but bright white light, but for the first time since he’d been taken, Allura could feel Lance, feel his presence. 

“Lance,” Allura said, touching the mirror. She waited, barely daring to breath as she waited for a response. 

\--- 

Lance tossed, images flickering through his head. Distorted human faces, hands that burned. He could see images of himself, spells burning his skin away. There were hands all over his body, touching everywhere, touching inside of him, running over every part of him and he couldn’t stop them. The touched and touched and Lance could talk. He couldn’t say anything. He tried to move but his body wouldn’t listen to him. Every movement he made was too slow, to slow to get away from the burning, searching, invasive hands that tortured him. He wanted to scream, he wanted to run, but he was stuck. He was stuck. 

“_ Lance.” _

The familiar voice rocked through him. It burned away those hands in a blaze of light. His eyes opened to a familiar ceiling, but he hardly cared. He launched himself out of the bed and stumbled, going to knees, body too weak to want to support him, barely hearing the familiar concerned voices or feeling the warm, kind hands – so different than the hands in his dreams – helping him up. 

Lance made it to the bathroom and slapped his hand against the mirror. Only standing thanks to Shiro and Keith’s support. 

“Allura!” he gasped. He could feel her, feel her magic. 

The bathroom mirror blazed white and cleared in an instant, but instead of their own faces reflected, a woman stared out at them. Her black horns spiraled two feet tall, straight up, the tips ending in sharp points. Her eyes glowed an enraged pink and the pink marks beneath her eyes were spikier than Lance’s, swopping down her face and glowing with the same blinding magic magic. A cascade of billowing white hair fell down her back and light blazed around her. She looked like a vengeful angel, ready to kill any who cross her. 

Until she saw Lance, and the cold, angry expression dropped from her face. Tears filled her eyes and she stepped forward, pressing both hands to the mirror as if she could physically step forward. 

“Lance, my darling are you okay? Where are you? Are you safe now? I’ve heard you calling out to me!” 

“Yeah,” Lance croaked, voice raspy as tears spilled down his cheeks. “I’m safer now.” 

Allura’s eyes flicked down to the bandages around his neck, and around his wrists. Her eyes narrowed again. “Show me what happened.” 

Lance hung his head down and took a trembling breath. “It was bad. It was really bad. You don’t want to see it.” 

“It’s alright darling, let me share the burden with you. Remember what we promised each other? We’ll never face hardships alone. It’s okay to show me.” 

Lance took another deep breath and shifted his hand on the mirror so it was directly over Allura’s. Cold magic filled the bathroom, and the light surrounding Allura on the other side of the mirror brightened. Her eyes slipped closed, but her eyes moved rapidly beneath her eyelids. 

Allura inhaled sharply, the light in the mirror blazed too bright to look at, and when she opened her eyes there was such a fury there that Shiro and Keith had to force themselves not to take a step back when that gaze turned to them. But she didn’t speak. She studied them for a moment, then turned her gaze to the side. A moment later a man stepped forward – he was just as Lance had described him – tall, long white hair, and lilac skin. 

Allura reached out and touched him, their eyes closed, and after a few moments a burst of yellow magic billowed around Lotor. His fists clenched and he shared a long look with Allura before he turned and marched out of view. 

Allura’s eyes slipped back to Lance. “I will get you back, darling. Okay? I will bring you back home.” 

Lance said nothing. He sniffled and nodded, but remained quiet. Allura looked pained, the desire to hold and comfort her brother so plain on her face it almost hurt to see. 

“You need to get more rest. I don’t know why you helped the humans in such a way, but you didn’t have the energy to do something so grand. So, go back to sleep while I talk to the humans. I promise, there will be no bad dreams.” 

“Allura don’t!” Lance said, but her magic flared and then Lance was slumping to the ground. Shiro caught him, looking bewildered between the demon queen in his mirror, to the unconscious Lance. 

“Go make him comfortable in bed, and then return here please,” Allura said. The words were polite, but her tone was as cold and sharp as a sword’s edge. Shiro really didn’t have any choice but to obey. He carried Lance into the bedroom and gently tucked him into the bed before returning to Keith’s side in the bathroom. They linked hands, and stared up at the demon queen. 

“Tell me what will happen to the humans who hurt him.” 

“They are being prosecuted by two different branches of government, and will likely receive a life prison sentence,” Shiro replied cautiously. 

“A prison sentence...” Allura snapped. “And do humans torture prisoners in accordance with the crimes they did? Will these men be chained and violated so they can experience the same kind of torment they subjected Lazeron too?” 

“That’s not how the human justice system operates.” 

Allura leaned forward until her face was inches from the mirror. “Not good enough. You were the ones who rescued him, you know what he endured, and now I have seen his memories. Those humans will suffer, and if humans will not punish them accordingly, I will.” 

“So then you have a way to get to our world?” Keith asked, earning him an elbow in the side from Shiro. Allura barked out a laugh. 

“We have had a way into your world for many or your human years, we just never had the motivation to assemble the construct until now. I will be coming to your realm, and you can decide in what manner I arrive. If Lance is harmed in any way before array is finished, your world will burn. You have taken charge of him, so you are responsible for his safety. If he remains safe, then we will return to our realm peacefully, on the condition that the humans who tortured him are surrendered to us. Otherwise we will take them, and I cannot promise other humans won’t be harmed in the process.” 

“We will keep him safe,” Keith snapped. Shiro sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. 

Allura raised one eyebrow, and the angry magic around her dimmed. A little smirk lifted the side of her mouth. “Tell me, what will you both do when I arrive to bring him back?” 

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, eyes narrowing at the sudden mirth on the demon’s face. 

“Will you just let him go? Will you let me take him from your arms and to a place where you will never see him again? He will return to our realm, and he will lead the life that is necessary to an incubus. I know you understand Lance’s status, and mine. You know he is royalty. He had dozens of hand-selected, powerful demons whom he would regularly feed off of. All incubi and succubae take various partners until they bond.” 

The pair of them visibly tensed, and Allura couldn’t help but laugh. “I have seen Lance’s memories, and within them I have seen things he himself hasn’t noticed. I have seen how you both care for him. It is not an option for Lance to stay in your world, you know this. So, while you wait for my arrival, carefully consider whether or not you are willing to lose him. But more than that, consider whether or not he can lose the pair of you. Those feelings of yours are not one-sided.” 

Allura turned her head to the side, listening to something neither men could hear, before her attention returned to them. They were still speechless, wondering how they could possibly respond. 

“I did not want to put Lance to sleep, but his body needs to replenish. If you two aren’t willing to give him the energy he needs to survive, find someone who will. If he expends so much magic again without having properly fed, it could kill him and you know what will happen to your world if that occurs. Now, the power fueling this communication is waning. It will take some time before I can contact him again, so think carefully on what I’ve said.” 

“Before you go, I have one question,” Shiro said. Allura looked to the side again, listened, then turned back to him and nodded. 

“Quickly then.” 

“We can’t figure out how those men managed to summon such a high-level demon. When I erased their memories of the summoning, I didn’t see anything particularly extraordinary about the summoning. Do you have any idea how it happened?” 

Allura sighed. “No human has the power to summon a royal demon. Lance is wonderful, but he has an unfortunate habit of sacrificing himself for others. The explosion he told you about during the war, he nearly died because he threw himself in front of our uncle to shield him. He weakened himself by dampening your pain,” Allura nodded towards Shiro, “and by restoring the land Haggar destroyed in your world, he could have died. He wasn't the one the summoning spell latched onto, it was a close friend of ours, a succubus name Romelle. He took her place. Ask him about it, he’ll tell you what happened, and, I beg of you as his sister and someone who loves him dearly, keep him safe from others of your kind, and from himself.” 

The white light faded, and Allura vanished, leaving Shiro and Keith to stare at their reflections. It was eerie how Allura’s words so closely echoed Matt’s from earlier. They’d both ignored it then, but now... 

Keith turned and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist. “She is terrifying.” he said, voice muffled into Shiro’s shirt. 

Shiro hugged Keith back and was silent for a long moment. “I think I'm falling in love with Lance.” 

“Yeah,” Keith huffed. “I think I am too.” 

“I don’t know what to do. He’s a different species, from a different world, and he’s a prince. Until we found him, we thought demons were all evil, chaotic entities. I’m lost, Keith.” 

Keith pulled away and grabbed Shiro’s hand, leading him back into the bedroom where Lance was sleeping. He still had dried tear tracks on his face, so Keith sat beside him and used his sleeve to gently wipe them away. 

“I’m not sure any of that matters now. I don’t want to lose him, he’s just... He’s perfect for us.” Keith traced his fingers up the curve of Lance’s horn, surprised at how smooth it actually felt. 

“Okay,” Shiro sighed. “Then we’ll talk to him when he wakes up.” 

“I'm so worried about him,” Keith whispered, softly cupping Lance’s face. In his sleep, Lance turned into the touch, pressing his cheek more firmly into Keith’s palm. 

“Yeah,” Shiro stepped closer to Keith so he could wrap his arm around Keith’s shoulders. “I am too.” 

It was late in the afternoon when Shiro’s phone rang. They hadn’t done much the entire day, nothing except stay near Lance and wait for him to wake up. Black had appeared at one point and was cuddle up to Lance’s side. 

Shiro glanced at the screen, and answered immediately. “Matt, what’s going on?” 

“Pidge is on her way to your place right now. Somethings up so be wary, she’s going to be there any second.” 

“What? Why?” Keith’s head snapped up at Shiro’s outburst. 

“I don’t know but considering the timing, I would have to guess it has something to do with the massive baby forest that just popped up in a former barren wasteland. I don’t know anything more, just that she’s going there. Let me know what happens.” 

Matt hung up right as the door rang. “Fuck, it’s Pidge,” Shiro said. 

“Shit, okay. Let’s go talk to her and try to get her to leave.” 

They walked out of the bedroom and shut the door behind them. They each took a second to take a deep breath and compose themselves, before Shiro opened the door. 

Pidge shouldered her way in without a word, surprisingly strong for such a tiny person. She paced into the living room, stopped, and took a deep breath. 

“You two have so much fucking explaining to do,” she said. Both she and Matt cursed like sailors, and it was usually kind of funny, but right then Keith and Shiro were just wary. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Listen, the P.A. has layers and layers and layers of shit we do. Not even Matt knows everything. One of the things Matt doesn’t know is that we monitor Haggar’s wasteland 24/7 for various reason, but mostly just to detect changes in magic and whatnot. So imagine my surprise when we get a ping saying something changed. I had the good sense to view the recordings alone, thank me for that later, and I saw you two and a goddamned incubus. What’s more, the incubus cleansed all the fucking corrosion magic, purified the land, and made everything grow again. You told me you banished him, that was obviously a lie. You told me he was insane, which seems to be another lie. So you wanna explain what’s going on?” 

“You’re right. We didn’t banish him, and he was fully sane. I lied because he was incredibly traumatized and I didn’t want to you take him into P.A. custody. He is hurt and very scared.” 

“Honestly, what exactly is it you guys think of me? We've known each other for how long? I could have verified his sanity in minutes in a way that would be completely safe and stress-free for him.” 

“We know you wouldn’t hurt him, but he’s fragile Pidge. Could you have resisted interviewing him? Studying him? He’s the first physically manifested incubus that’s ever come to this world, and the first sane demon we’ve ever encountered. That would be a huge research opportunity.” 

Pidge’s eyes narrowed at Shiro’s words. “I know full what happened to him, so you want to know what I would have done? As soon as I verified he wasn’t a threat, I would have found him a comfortable place to stay, I would have called Matt to help him with the trauma, I would have provided medical treatment to the best of my ability, and I would not do anything until he was recovered. I’m not a monster. Yes, I want to know why he’s different than other demons, but I would never want to cause him further harm. Jesus you two.” Pidge paced back and forth a couple times, running a hand through her hair and mussing it up further. 

“We did what we thought was best at the time,” Keith said. 

“Yeah, and now I have to explain to the world how that wasteland is now lush and green and fertile, without revealing anything about your incubus. I don’t want to hurt him, or experiment on him. I want answers, but I won’t jeopardize his mental health to get them.” 

“We have some answers, if you want to sit down we’ll tell you.” Shiro gestured to the couch. Pidge rolled her eyes and plopped down. 

“Fine,” she waved a hand. “Tell me.” 

Shiro and Keith sat, and took turns telling her what they’d learned, and Pidge managed to remain stoic until they briefly filled her in on their conversation with the demon queen, and her demands. At that point Pidge dropped her head in her hands. 

“So, if I’m hearing this right. Lance is the beloved brother of a demon queen. He likes to sacrifice himself for others. If he is hurt in any way from here on out then the demon queen will destroy our world and everyone in it, and we have to turn over the men who hurt Lance to her or she will probably kill a lot of people. And you too think she has the power to do it?” 

Keith nodded. “I mean, considering what she said, and what Lance has said, yeah, I think she could probably do it. I can’t even think of a word strong enough to described how furious she is. She saw Lance’s memories, she knows every detail of what he went through.” 

“What a fucking mess. All of this because those rapists decided to mess around with summoning magic. Alright, I'm going to see what I can do. I expect to be kept in the loop from here on out, and after this whole thing is resolved we’re going to have a really long talk. Before I leave, I'd like to meet him. I trust you when you say he’s not a threat, but I would like to see that for myself.” 

“He’s asleep right now.” 

“Fine,” Pidge stood up. “He in one of the guest rooms? I just want to quickly check.” 

“Uh, he’s actually in our room,” Shiro said. 

One of Pidge’s eyebrows arched up. “He’s sleeping in your bed?” 

“He has nightmares – it's hard for him to rest when he’s by himself.” 

“Well then I’m glad you already got Matt involved. I won’t stay long, I just want to see him.” Pidge began marching towards the bedroom. 

“Pidge seriously, I don’t feel comfortable letting you in there while he’s sleeping.” Shiro said, following after her. 

“Calm down, it will take two seconds.” 

Pidge had the bedroom door open and was walking in before Keith and Shiro could try to stop her. 

Keith stepped in front of Pidge, blocking her view of Lance the best he could. “Pidge, get out. He doesn’t know you and shouldn’t have people examining him like a zoo animal while he sleeps.” 

“Keith's right. We’ll talk to him when he wakes up, and if he’s okay with meeting you, we’ll let you know.” 

Pidge threw up her hands and huffed. “You two seriously...” 

A sound from the bed had them all pausing and looking over. Lance sat up, eyes bleary until he caught sight of Pidge. A panicked sound bubbled up from his throat and he scuttled backwards, pressing himself against the headboard. 

“Fuck.” Keith ran over to the bed and climbed on, cupping Lance’s face to get his attention away from Pidge and onto him. 

“It’s okay Lance. She’s not going to hurt you.” 

Lance’s eyes were wide and wild and he was breathing in frantic, rapid gasps as the panic attack took hold. 

Keith used his thumbs to stroke over Lance’s cheeks, over his markings, keeping his hold firm but gentle so Lance remained focused on him. He could sense Shiro at his back, but kept his attention fully on Lance. 

“You’re safe Lance. Can you hear me? You’re safe.” 

Lance’s lip wobbled, but he nodded. 

“Good,” Keith murmured. Lance leaned forward and Keith let him go so Lance could bury his face in his neck. Keith wrapped his arms around him, holding Lance until his trembling began to fade away and his breathing slowed. 

“Pidge you should go,” Shiro said. 

“It’s okay,” Lance croaked, pulling back just a little – not enough to leave the circle of Keith’s arms, but enough so he could look over at Pidge. She had her arms crossed and her expression was pinched in concern. 

“I sincerely apologize, I didn’t mean to make you panic. I was too insensitive.” 

“Who are you?” 

“My name is Katie, but most people call me Pidge. I’m Matt’s sister.” 

“Everyone was trying to keep you from finding out about me.” 

“Yeah cause they’re all ass holes. I have no intention to take you away from somewhere you feel safe. In the future, if you have time, I would like to ask you some questions, but it can wait.” 

Lance simply nodded. 

“I should go so you can get more rest, but I can see you are still very weak and injured. I can work on finding a trustworthy person for you to feed from so you can recover.” Pidge paused briefly, interest lighting up her face when she noticed Shiro and Keith’s unhappy reactions at her words. “I understand it might be frightening for you to meet another new human, but while I don’t know much about your physiology, I assume it’s not comfortable to be starving. I’ll see what I can do to get you what you need. I’ll send Shiro some questions later so I can start vetting people based on your preferences.” 

Lance glanced at Shiro and Keith, hesitated, and then nodded again without saying anything. Pidge gave the pair of men a long, knowing glare, then turned and walked out. A minute later they heard the front door open and close, and everyone let out a breath. 

Shiro’s phone pinged with a text, and he laughed as soon as he saw the message. 

Pidge: He’s very sweet. You two had better take good fucking care of him and if you don’t do something to let him properly feed, I'll find someone else. Tell him I’m sorry for scaring him... I got overly excited. 

“What is it?” Keith asked, craning his neck to get a peek at the phone. 

“Pidge says she’s sorry for scaring you Lance.” 

“She wasn’t that scary, I mean she’s a very tiny human. I just didn’t expect to see another person.” 

Keith snorted. “Please call her a tiny human next time you see her.” 

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I think that wouldn’t go over well.” 

Shiro and Keith just laughed. Lance sighed and melted back into Keith and just let himself be held. 

“Are you okay with it?” he asked, voice small. 

Shiro sat on the bed and soothed his hand up and down Lance’s back. “Are we okay with what?” 

“Me feeding from another human.” 

Keith couldn’t help it when his arms tightened around Lance. “No,” he whispered. “I don’t think we are.” 

“I don’t want to feed from strange humans.” 

“Then tell us what you need,” Shiro said. 

Lance kept his face pressed to Keith’s shoulder. “I don’t want to be penetrated, yet. I don’t think I'm ready for that yet, but as long as there is sexual energy I can siphon it. So if you two don’t want me involved, I can just... I uhm, I could watch or something then siphon it from you.” 

“Lance, can you look at me real quick?” Shiro asked. It took a minute, but Lance lifted his head to look at Shiro, earning him a smile. 

“If you just want to siphon the energy from Keith and I, we can do that. But we also want to bring you pleasure if you’re ready – we don’t want to leave you out of it.” Shiro reached out and ran his thumb under one of Lance’s markings. “We want you with us Lance.” 

“I think I want that, to feel good again.” 

“Okay, then we’ll make you feel good.” 

“But I can’t get energy from myself. One or both of you has to feel good too.” 

“I think we can do that. Can I kiss you Lance?” Shiro asked. 

“Yes.” 

Shiro leaned over and pressed a soft, nearly reverent kiss to Lance’s lips over Keith’s shoulder. Lance pressed closer to Keith, squeezing him tightly as he sunk into Shiro’s kiss. Keith’s hands wandered down, tracing the curve of Lance’s waist, down to the hem of his shirt, where he paused. 

“Let’s shift around,” Keith said. Shiro pulled back from the kiss, leaving Lance a little bit dazed, but with enough sense left to pull back so he could kiss Keith next. Keith sucked in a breath, surprised and pleased at the kiss. Theirs was a little roughed, a little quicker, but no less tender. 

There was a lot of shuffling after the kiss ended. Shiro ended up sitting against the headboard, Lance on his back, cradled partially on Shiro’s lap. After getting permission, Keith had stripped his shirt off and now sat between Lance’s spread legs. He threw his own shirt off before reaching down and tracing his hands up Lance’s expose chest, feeling the lean muscle bunch beneath silky skin. Lance bit his lip, one hand holding Shiro’s, the other above his head and fisted into Shiro’s shirt. 

Keith’s hands found Lance’s chest, and he brushed over his perky brown nipples, smiling when Lance arched into the touch and gasped. 

“It feels good to be touched here?” Keith asked, rolling Lance’s nipples between his fingers, listening as Lance’s gasps rose in pitch. 

“Yes!” Lance cried at a particularly hard pinch. 

“Good. Shiro can you keep going with this then?” 

Shiro laughed and used his free hand to replace Keith’s, playing with Lance’s nipples and marveling as he squirmed and gasped. 

Keith’s hands ran back down Lance’s body, stopping at the waistband of the sweatpants he wore. 

“Can I take these off?” 

“Please,” Lance said, rolling his hips. 

“Okay, but remember, if you need to stop at any time, you can tell us. We are never going to hurt you or do something you don’t like.” 

Lance nodded and Keith pulled the sweatpants down, but he went slow, both to give Lance time to change his mind if he needed, and to savor the slow reveal of Lance’s body. He had to move out from between Lance’s leg to get them fully off, but he was right back there as soon as they were off and thrown to the side. 

With the sweatpants off, Shiro and Keith paused and just took a moment to admire Lance’s body. They’d seen him naked before, but this time was different. This time Lance was safe, willing, and unafraid. He was trusting himself to them and he was enjoying it, if his almost completely hard cock was anything to go by, and it felt like such a gift to them both to see him like that. 

Lance blushed under their gazes, but didn’t look away. “Can I see you too Keith?” he asked. Keith grinned and leaned forward, kissing Lance hard before he pulled away and shucked his own pants off. 

Lance licked his lips and grinned. “You’re beautiful,” he breathed. Keith blushed so hard he felt lightheaded. He saw Shiro grin at him, and leaned up so he could kiss the grin away and take the brief moment to compose himself. 

“I can tell I’m going to have a hard time with you both. Teases,” Keith grumbled against Shiro’s lips. 

“You’re the naked one right now. I think I’m the one being teased,” Shiro responded, having a hard time suppressing his smile so he could kiss Keith back. 

“We can all be naked,” Lance said airily. Keith laughed and pulled back, looking down at the stunning incubus cradled in Shiro’s lap. 

“Nah, I'm going to have my fun first. The old man can wait.” 

Lance’s answering laugh ended in a drawn-out moan when Keith wrapped his hot hand around Lance’s length. He pumped him, working him up, watching him squirm and pump his hips so he could fuck into Keith’s hand. Shiro’s free hand went back to pinching and rolling Lance’s nipples, drawing the moans out louder and higher in pitch. 

“Feels good, please don’t stop, oh gods, oh gods please Keith,” Lance babbled, eyes closed and mouth open. 

“I’m not going to stop. I want you to feel good, Lance – I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Tell me what you want.” 

“Faster please, I want to release, gods!” Lance threw his head back – his horns dug into Shiro’s stomach, but Shiro hardly cared. He was enraptured by the way Lance’s body moved, by the way Lance’s was so unapologetically loud and honest about how he was feeling and what he wanted. 

“That’s it, you’re so good Lance. Let us see you cum,” Keith murmured, working his hand up and down Lance’s shaft, squeezing and twisting his wrist, picking up the pace. Keith knew Lance needed him and Shiro to feel pleasure as well so he could feed, but Keith wanted to give Lance this pleasure first. 

Lance’s cock was slick with his own precum, far slicker than a human would be from precum alone, as if Lance’s body produced its own lubrication. 

As Keith moved his hand faster, Lance’s body coiled tighter. His back was in a permanent arch and he was giving these loud, needy little moans, the pitch going higher each time Shiro would play with his nipples. 

“Oh gods Keith, I– I, gods, please!” 

“Cum for us Lance, we’re here. You’re safe with us, so release,” Shiro said. Lance’s body went taut and he cried out, loud and unabashedly as his cock pulse and painted his torso and Keith’s hand with pearly white cum. It literally shimmered on his skin, an oddly beautiful and erotic contrast on his dark brown chest. 

Keith kept pumping him, worked him through it until Lance fell limp onto the bed, gasping and shivering. Lance’s eyes slipped open just in time to watch Keith bring his cum covered hand up and lick off some of the shimmery white liquid. 

“You’re going to feel that really soon,” Lance panted, a small smile on his face. 

“Feel what?” 

“My body fluids are aphrodisiacs.” 

“Is that why it shimmers?” Keith asked, completely unconcerned. Shiro reached out and grabbed Keith’s hand, pulling it forward so he could lick off the rest, staring into Keith’s eyes the entire time. 

Lance giggled. “Maybe, I never thought about it before.” He ran a hand up his torso, gathering up some of his own cum and licking it off his hand. Shiro couldn’t stop the groan that escaped him from watching that. 

“Can I taste you Shiro?” Lance asked. Shiro huffed, letting his head fall back. 

“How could I say no to that?” he groaned. Both Keith and Lance laughed. There was another shuffle and Lance ended up on his knees and elbows as he unzipped Shiro’s pants and pulled his cock out. His ass was up in the air, tail swaying, perfectly hairless hole on display. It was only a minute or so before Keith and Shiro shivered, a hot, heavy feeling racing through their bodies. Their cocks throbbed and their minds felt... somehow fogged and yet crystal clear when they focused on Lance. 

“Fuck,” Shiro said, hands trembling as Lance licked a long stripe up the underside of his dick. That hot, throbbing feeling in his body made his cock feel so sensitive, so full, so heavy, so desperate for release. 

Keith watched this for a moment before his eyes slid to Lance’s slick hole, and he couldn’t help but dive forward and bury his tongue there. Lance whined and squirmed, his back arching lower, which pushed his ass back into Keith’s mouth. Keith gripped his upper thighs, able to get lovely handfulls of the soft flesh. He lapped at Lance’s hole, thrusting his tongue in and out, tasting the oddly sweet, oddly warm, and incredibly slick substance Lance’s body seemed to produce. It made his body grow hotter, his heartrate going up and up, his desire growing as he listened to Lance’s whining moans, and Shiro’s low, pleased groans. 

The ministrations of Keith’s tongue drove Lance to go faster in his own ministrations on Shiro’s cock. He kissed and licked, and finally sealed his mouth over the tip and swirled his tongue, licking across the hole at the tip, having to suppress a grin when Shiro’s thighs flexed and he moaned particularly loud. Lance’s cock was still hard, and he was feeling high on the pleasure of the two men around him. 

Lance pulled off of Shiro’s cock, licking at the head before replacing his mouth with his hand. He turned to try and get a glimpse of Keith. 

“Keith,” he moaned. Keith licked from his perineum to his hole, thrust his tongue again, then pulled back. He massaged at Lance’s perineum, but otherwise gave him his attention. 

“What do you need Lance?” he asked, voice low. With Lance’s free hand, he reached back and grabbed his own thigh, pulling it so there was a small gap between his thighs. 

“Thrust here.” 

Whatever blood was left in Keith’s head rushed straight down to his dick. He got up on his knees, ran his dick through the slick substance on Lance’s hole, then thrust between Lance’s thighs. He and Lance let out a simultaneous moan as Keith’s dick rubbed against Lance’s. 

“Shiro, tail, please, touch it?” Lance asked before putting his mouth back on Shiro’s dick and swallowing it down. It took a moment for Shiro to be coherent enough to process the request, but once it penetrated his lust clouded brain, he reached out and captures the swaying tail, running his hand up the smooth, somewhat scaled appendage until he reached the spaded tip. He squeezed and Lance jolted, and gurgling, pleasured scream pouring out around Shiro’s cock. 

Both men paused for the briefest moment. “I had no idea that was so sensitive for you,” Shiro commented, before he began jacking the tail like he would Lance’s cock. Keith began thrusting again, head falling back as he fell into the sensation of his cock spearing through Lance’s warm, slick thighs, the sensation of his dick rubbing against Lance’s slick one. 

Shiro used both his hands on Lance’s tail, one to keep the thrashing appendage still, the other to rub and squeeze over the tip, listening for queues from Lance to figure out what made him feel the best. With one particularly hard squeeze from Shiro, and a perfectly angled thrust from Keith, Lance was pulling off of Shiro’s dick and screaming as he released again. 

Neither of them slowed down. Lance put his mouth back on Shiro and bobbed quickly despite the fact he was still trembling and being worked through his release. Shiro and Keith felt a desperation take them, and their movements became a bit frantic. Shiro was thrusting up into Lance’s willing mouth, and Keith was gripping Lance’s thigh hard as he drove his cock forward. 

“Take the energy Lance, take what you need from us, please,” Keith groaned. Lance waited, waited until the perfect moment, and then he pulled in the cloud of sexual energy surround them. Neith Keith nor Shiro were expecting the sudden surge of pleasure. It was like their release was pulled from them as Lance pulled the energy. They groaned, moaned, cried out as they released, not attempting to resist the tugging sensation as Lance pulled the energy into himself. 

When they tugging stopped, all three somewhat collapsed on each other, panting, sated, just trying to relearn how to think and breath and move. The first thing Shiro and Keith noticed when sense returned to them was that Lance’s body was warmer. Not by a little bit, he was radiating heat. 

“Lance?” Shiro murmured, petting his hands over Lance’s waist. “Talk to us, are you okay?” 

Lance sat up, albeit still very shaky, but there was a smile on his face. A genuine, happy smile. He began tugging at one of the bandages around his wrist, uttering a quiet, “thank you,” when Shiro helped. When the bandage fell away, the skin around his wrist looked so different. The skin was no longer black and burned. There were the beginnings of white, ropy scars visible, but the brutal damage looked to be healing. The skin was still red and irritated around the scars, but it was is if weeks of healing had happened instantly. 

“Can you help me take the rest off?” Lance asked. Shiro and Keith complied without hesitation, and smiles lit their faces when Lance giggled as he took in the healing skin. He didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the scars, he was simply happy that the painful burns were mostly gone. The open lacerations from the beatings were mostly healed as well, leaving thin white lines. Both humans couldn’t help but feel the anger rise in them again as they took in the scars on Lance’s body, but didn’t let it show. Lance was happy, and they weren’t going to do anything to bring that down. 

The neck bandages came off last, and there was a collar of scars there, a permanent reminded of what Lance had been through. Keith couldn’t help but pull Lance forward into a soft, tender to kiss, just to remind himself that Lance was safe and he was theirs and he trusted them and was happy. 

“I don’t feel tired like when you took normal energy from us,” Keith said against his lips. 

“Different type of feeding. We’ll all feel a little tired, but that’s just kind of how you feel after sex anyways,” Lance said. 

Shiro laughed and kissed the side of Lance’s head, momentarily stunned at how wonderful it felt to be able to kiss Lance freely. More kisses and giggles followed until the three of them managed to stumble into the bathroom and shower off. Shiro finished first and ran out to change the sheets, and then they were falling into bed, uncaring that it was still only late afternoon. 

They all cuddled up together, the heat Lance radiated making everything pleasantly warm. 

“I intended to make that much gentler, I’m sorry,” Keith said, kissing the warm, unbandaged skin of Lance’s neck. He was positioned behind Lance, cuddled up against his back like the octopus he like to be when he slept. He loved wrapped himself around Shiro, but didn’t think he’d mind wrapping himself around Lance when they slept sometimes. 

“It was perfect. Thank you for... uhm, for not entering me. I just don’t think I’m ready for that yet.” 

“We’re never going to do something you aren’t ready for,” Keith said. Shiro made a noise of agreement and ran his fingers through Lance’s hair as best he could around the horns. Luckily the horns swept straight back and curved up, so Lance could still rest his head on Shiro’s chest without causing him discomfort. 

“Was everything we did okay Lance?” Shiro murmured. 

“I really liked it. I thought I might get, I don’t know, scared? Or maybe I'd have one of those episodes I have, but I didn’t feel scared. I could smell you guys, and I could hear your voices, and I just felt good. Thank you.” 

Shiro met Keith’s eyes, and they smiled, holding Lance just a little tighter. 

“How often do you need to feed?” 

“Once a week usually. But I, well...” Lance trailed off and ducked his head a little. 

“What is it?” Keith asked, soothing his hand up and down Lance’s waist. 

“We don’t only have to do this when I need to feed... we can do it more.” Lance’s face flushed and it was adorable. 

“We can do this whenever you want, as long as we’re all feeling like we want to. We like you Lance, we want you with us.” 

“Okay,” Lance said with a little smile. 

They all ended up taking a short nap, tangled together, feeling warm and content and fulfilled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay everyone!


	6. Night market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance finds the courage to venture out to a farmer's night market with Shiro and Keith. 
> 
> On the way home they meet someone unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out! Master's degrees are hard *sobs*

~~6

“Are you sure you are okay with this?” Shiro asked for probably the twelfth time that day. He smoothed his hands down Lance’s arms, checked to make sure the little bandages on his face completely covered his markings, ran his fingers through his now brown hair, and just overall fussed and fretted over Lance as if he were a kindergartener heading out to his first day of school. 

Lance and Keith just let him fret with equal amusement and a bit of exasperation on Keith’s part.

“I’m sure. I haven’t seen anything in the human world besides Matt’s office and this house,” and an awful basement, but no one was counting that one. “I'm curious to see your ‘farmer’s market’ – that’s not something I’ve heard of before. And you said there would be food and I really like human food so it’s totally chill.” Lance made some finger guns and mimed shooting them at Keith and Shiro, adding a wink for good measure. 

Keith snorted through his nose. It had been a couple weeks since they’d spoke to Allura, a couple weeks where none of them had much to do, so they’d taken to watching a lot of Netflix or playing video games. Lance was absolutely fascinated by both of them, and had taken to using a lot of slang, or acting like the people in the shows to try and be more human. It tended towards being endearingly over the top, but not annoying by any means.

“Okay. We’ll be by your side the whole time, so if you get overwhelmed or something just let us know and we can leave.” 

It had been Matt’s recommendation for them to try venturing out to some place with more people, and once Lance worked up the courage, they decided to go to the local farmer’s night market to pick up some fresh groceries. Lance was anxious and excited at the same time, but it was Shiro who seemed the most nervous. 

“Shiro,” Lance said softly. Shiro paused in his fussing to look Lance in the eyes. “I’m going to be alright.” 

Shiro took a deep breath and nodded. “I know, I'm sorry.” 

Lance leaned forward and kissed him, just a quick peck of the lips, then turned to do the same with Keith. They’d had sex and let Lance feed regularly over the past couple weeks – minus any penetration for Lance – and Lance was completely healed. His scars had faded from the bright new, red-ringed white, to the duller white of old scars. Even so, they seemed stark on his dark skin, and he’d taken to wearing long-sleeved turtle-necks to cover the scarred ring around his throat and wrists. His favorite was a dark blue cashmere turtle-neck that Keith had bought him on a whim. Lance practically lived in the shirt – it had kind of become another security blanket for him. 

“Ready to go or do you need to fuss more?” Keith’s voice was laced with amusement. Shiro just scowled at him. 

“You’re acting as if you aren’t carrying like five different knives on you right now because you’re afraid something might attack us.”

“To be fair I always carry knives.”

“You usually carry one knife.” 

Keith huffed. “I just want to be prepared.” 

“Just remember to be patient. You can’t be as reckless as you once were – if you think something’s a threat then take a step back and analyze it first. And be careful with your magic, if something happens I don’t want the whole market to burn down.”

“Yeah  yeah , I know, patience yields focus and all that. But if I think something is going to hurt you or Lance I’m not going to hesitate.” 

Lance watched the exchange with raised eyebrows and an amused smile on his face. He had his arms crossed and just waited, already used to the harmless bickering between his two humans.

“Are these markets usually a dangerous affair?” Lance asked when the bickering lulled for a moment. 

“No,” Shiro sighed. “We’re just a little stressed. We don’t want anything to happen to you. When you look like  that I can’t even sense you’re a demon, but shit happens sometimes. You mean a lot to us so...” Keith nodded in agreement. 

Lance felt warmth bloom in his chest. “Thank you, but you don’t need to worry so much. It was my decision to go out with you to the market, and you know I can actually take care of myself. I’m totally talented and the most powerful incubus out there – I'm not scared of farmers!”

“You’re right, you can take care of yourself.” Shiro stepped forward and wrapped Lance in his arms, kissing his forehead once before pulling away. 

They finally managed to get out of the house and into the SUV. They found parking a few blocks away from the farmer’s market, and when they got out Keith immediately stepped up to Lance’s side and hooked an arm around his waist to keep him close while they walked. Lance laughed and grinned, but otherwise didn’t do anything except enjoy the overprotective affection.

They walked away from the car and into the main part of the market where there were various canvas tents and stalls selling all kinds of produce and honey and flowers and homemade goods. The whole area was lit by gently bobbing mage globes, the soft orbs of light making lazy circles in the air. There were faint motes of light magic swirling around some of the globes, evidence that they had been more recently made than others. 

Lance was momentarily entranced by the lights and the ambience of the night market, but found himself pressing further into Keith’s side as they walked further and became surrounded by more people. He couldn’t help but tense up and flinch every time there was a loud voice or sudden laughter. 

His reactions didn’t go unnoticed by Keith or Shiro. They stuck close to him on either side, doing their best to act as a buffer between Lance and all the other people milling about. 

“You okay?” Shiro asked. Lance nodded, but his eyes were a little too wide.

Keith kissed his temple. “We don’t have to stay long. We’ll just grab a couple things and head out.”

Lance nodded. He was counting his breaths in and out like Matt had told him to do when he got overly anxious, but he couldn’t fully relax with so many humans around. He did like looking at all the different things for sale, and there were so many new smells, but any time they stopped and Shiro went off to grab something, Lance felt vulnerable and unprotected.

They walked up to a little stall selling some fresh herbs and vegetables. Shiro patted Lance’s shoulder and smiled. 

“Almost done. You’re doing great though.” He gave Lance a quick kiss before walking up to the old man sitting at the stall. When the man saw Shiro he gave a big, gap-toothed grin and stood up, groaning quietly at the movement. 

“Shiro, good to see you.”

Shiro shook the man’s proffered hand. “Good to see you too Arnie. How’s things?”

“ Oh you know, going good as they can be at my age.” Arnie looked past Shiro to where Keith and Lance stood a  short way off, out of the way so they weren’t bothered by a lot of people walking around. 

“Keith not coming up to say hi? And who’s that other one? He looks scared half to death.”

“His name is Lance, he’s Keith and I’s new partner, and he’s been through a lot and not great with strangers...” Shiro drifted off, then perked up and a grin lit his face. “Arnie, do you have Benji with you?”

“ Of course I have him here, no way the old boy is going to let me leave him at home.” Arnie pointed back and Shiro craned his neck to see an old golden retriever lying on an orthopedic dog bed behind Arnie. He had white fur around his snout and his eyes drooped, but he started wagging his tail as soon as he heard Shiro say his name. 

“Do you mind if Lance goes back there to pet him. He really likes animals.”

“Of course, Benji would never turn down a good rub down.”

Shiro thanked him and turned, motioning Lance and Keith forward. Lance visibly pulled back, casting a slightly panicked look towards Keith, but Keith murmured something, smiled, and after Lance nodded they were walking forward. 

“What’s going on?” Keith asked. 

“Lance, I think there’s some you might want to meet.” Shiro held out his hand. Lance put his lip, but took  Shiro’s hand and let him pull them behind the stall. Lance’s breath caught as soon as he caught sight of the dog. He looked at Shiro, then Arnie, then back to the dog, then back to Shiro. 

“Can I pet him?” Lance asked. 

“ Of course you can, he’s a good boy,” Arnie said. Lance was over by the dog in an instant. He sat down right on ground and began petting a hand over the silky yellow fur on Benji’s head. With a great heaving  effort the old dog shifted, stood up, toddled forward a few steps, and butted his head against Lance chest. Lance wrapped his arms around the dog, and Benji sat down, tail wagging, patiently letting Lance hug him. 

“His hips hurt,” Lance murmured after a minute. 

“Yeah, he’s not a young dog anymore. I get a tincture from a local herb witch that helps the pain a bit, it’s done wonders and makes me glad I don’t have to give Benji any of those harsh painkiller drugs. But there isn’t a tincture out there that can reverse time, I’m only glad it will help his last bit a time be a bit less painful,” Arnie said. Lance didn’t respond, but a moment later there was a quiet sniffle and Lance’s arms tightened around the dog. His sleeve rode up, revealing the thick scars around Lance’s wrists, and Arnie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked over at Shiro, mouth open to ask a question. Shiro put a hand on his shoulder and led him a little farther away, while Keith sat beside Lance, not saying anything, but just letting Lance know he was there. 

“Like I said,” Shiro whispered, “he’s had a very rough time. Some people hurt him very badly. But we’re taking care of him and he’s getting professional help. Sometimes he gets overwhelmed though, and sometimes he has a hard time controlling his emotions.”

Arnie nodded and patted Shiro’s shoulder. “Glad you two are taking care of him then.” Arnie walked back over and sat back in his chair, quiet for a moment while Lance quietly cried into Benji’s fur. The old dog licked the side of Lance’s face, just once, but otherwise just let his head rest on Lance’s shoulder and made no moves to move away from the hug.

“You know,” Arnie said, loud enough for Lance to hear, “I was never the marrying type. Never the relationship type either. I never had any desire for that kind of thing, nor the physical stuff either. I wasn’t ever lonely per say, but I thought maybe I'd like to get a dog or something, just to have some company. Well, I tell you, when I met Benji I knew he hadn’t had the best start to life. I asked the people at the animal shelter and they said the people who had Benji as a puppy hurt him a lot, and that he didn’t trust anyone so no one wanted to adopt him. Well, I thought it wasn’t quite fair that no one wanted to adopt Benji just  cause he’d had a rough start, not like that was his fault.  So I took him home with me, and it wasn’t easy, but he warmed up to me, started to trust people again, and now he sees all the good in everyone he meets. He didn’t have a good start, but he’s still lived a happy life. It may almost be his time to go, but he has a  lot more good memories than bad ones now.”

Lance sobbed a little, but nodded his head without looking up. Benji’s eye’s slipped closed and a little doggy smile was on his face. He leaned his head against Lance’s and for a while everyone was quiet. The sounds of the market continued around them, the lights bobbed, and Benji’s tail made a little ‘swish  swish ’ sound as it moved back and forth across his dog bed. 

“I think I can make him feel better,” Lance sniffled. The air around him went a bit cold, and faint, nearly invisible motes of blue magic swirled around him, visible only for a brief moment before they disappeared into Benji’s body. This went on for a good five minutes before Benji’s tail started wagging harder. Lance pulled  back, his smile watery as he looked at the old golden retriever. Benji yipped at him and stood up, wiggling and prancing up to Arnie, mouth open with his tongue lolling out. 

Arnie laughed and scratched Benji’s ears. “ Lookit you acting like a puppy again.”

“I can’t heal old age, but I could take some of his pain away.” Lance made no move to get up off the ground. Benji wiggled back over to him and licked his face, then went to Keith for pets, then Shiro, back to Lance, then to Arnie, over excited at the fact he could move around without hurting so much. 

“Thank you for letting me pet him,” Lance stood up as he spoke. Keith quickly followed and wrapped an arm around Lance's waist, tucking him close and kissing his temple. 

“I should be thanking you, Benji sure looks to appreciate what you did. I’m here every Friday night, so any time you  wanna come say hi we’ll be here, at least for a little while longer.” Arnie smiled, his whole wrinkly face lighting up with the expression. Lance bit his lip and pulled away from Keith, stepping close to Arnie and, after a  moments hesitation, opening up his arms. Arnie was just as shocked as Shiro and Keith, but that didn’t stop the old man from wrapping his bony arms around Lance. 

“Your hips hurt to,” Lance mumbled. Arnie laughed and nodded. 

“They sure do, among other things.” 

The temperature around Lance dropped again, and those same faint blue motes of magic appeared around him, and just as quickly disappeared into Arnie’s body. 

Arnie let out a long, relieved sigh, and patted Lance on the back a couple times, and when he pulled  away he had his lips pressed tight together, eyes shining with unshed tears. He kept his hands on Lance’s shoulders and patted them again. 

“You’re a good boy,” Arnie’s voice was rough when he spoke, “and things are  gonna work out just fine for you. The universe is  gonna do right by you.” Arnie patted him again, then let his arms drop. He turned his attention to Shiro and Keith and took a deep breath. “Now you two go on and take him home, I think he’s had just about enough for today. And take good care of him. He’s a sweet boy. Come back and see me next week. And take this...” Arnie bustled around and set about putting some vegetables and herbs in a basket, his steps lighter and easier, before shoving them into Shiro’s hands. 

“And don’t you even think about trying to pay for that,” Arnie said while pointing a stern finger at Shiro and Keith. 

“Thanks Arnie,” Keith said, stepping close to Lance again and grabbing his waist. Lance didn’t mind the closeness at all. 

“We’ll see you soon,” Shiro told the old man. They all gave Benji another round of scratches, then walked away from the old man and dog. Lance looked back and saw them both staring after them, Benji’s tail wagging furiously, and Arnie giving him a wave. 

When they were towards the edge of the market, Lance let out a long, shaky breath. 

“You okay?” Shiro murmured, stepping close to Lance’s side. 

“I miss my family.” There was a catch in Lance’s throat as he spoke. “And I... I was thinking about how I’m never going to see my parents again. I miss them so much.” Lance closed his eyes and stopped walking, tears escaping from behind his close lids to trail down his cheeks. “And I miss my sister, and  Lotor , and my friends and my uncle.”

“I know what it’s like to lose parents,” Keith said, pulling Lance to the side of the sidewalk and turning them so he was somewhat shielded from the view of the public. “But your sister is doing everything she can to get you home. You’ll see them all again.”

Lance’s shoulders hunched and he sobbed. “But then I’ll lose you two.”

“You’re not going to lose us,” Shiro said, grabbing Lance’s hand and bringing it up to kiss the back. “We’ll figure something out, okay?”

Lance nodded, and the trio stood there for a few minutes, unnoticed off to the side at the edge of the market, until Lance was ready to move again. The walked slowly down the sidewalk towards the car, not talking, but all sticking close together, enjoying the moment of peace and the cool night air. 

As the lights from the night market faded behind them, they felt something shift in the air around them. There was a sudden heaviness, not all around them, but nearby, and a strange, yet vaguely familiar magic. 

“Shiro that’s summoning magic,” Keith said, body going tense. 

Shiro nodded. “It’s coming from the alley. Lance stay here.” Shiro moved to walk away and Lance caught his arm, face hard and focused in the direction the magic was coming from. 

“I’m perfectly capable of helping. Whatever demon comes through won’t be sane, I can help you with it.” 

“Okay,” was all Shiro said. He pulled off his glove before grabbing a dull, milky blue pearl from his pocket and crushing it. The dull purple light glowed from the cracks on his blackened and cracked arm, and the motes of barrier magic billowed out, ensuring that  passers by wouldn’t notice the magic or interfere in what was going on. 

The three of them walked into the alley, cautiously searching for what they assumed was a summoning circle, but once they reached the  area where the magic was strongest, there was nothing there. No people, no circle, just a swelling presence of magic with no visible source. 

Keith pulled his knife, not activating it yet, but keeping it at the ready, while fire burned in his left hand. Shiro and Keith stood slightly in front of Lance, waiting as the magic continued to grow, the pressure building as the summoning continued. All their focus was on that area until just behind them the temperature dropped dramatically, a blast of icy magic seeming to freeze the air around them. 

They turned and saw Lance, his glamour dropped, surrounded by bright blue motes of magic. His eyes blazed a solid blue, and the tips of his fingers were blackened, growing into sharp, curved talons. Lance held up a hand, and the frigid magic condensed, the moisture in the air crystalized, and before their eyes, a cylinder of pure ice materialized in Lance’s palm, growing in size with a crackling, icy noise, growing and growing until he help a wickedly sharp spear of pure, glacier blue ice. When it was finished forming, Lance bent his knees and leaned forward, holding the spear at the ready, a beautiful, deadly warrior, and in that moment Keith and Shiro understood very well how  Lazeron had earned his name.

Their attention went back to the forming magic as it reached its crescendo, and there was a sharp ‘CRACK’ as the veil between worlds split, and a burst of portal magic billowed out before the portal snapped shut and a figure was crouched there, breathing heavy, illuminated only by the fire Keith held in his palm. 

The figure stood up, and up, and up, standing well over seven feet tall, and when its eyes turned to them, they blazed yellow. He breathed in harsh pants, mouth open and revealing sharp incisors. He had thick horns extending straight up, purple skin with markings down his cheeks, and a braid of hair falling over his shoulder. 

A shattering sound came from behind them as Lance dropped his spear, shattering on impact with the ground as Lance let go of the magic holding it together. Lance stepped forward, hesitant, ignoring Shiro and Keith’s warnings to stay back. 

“ Kolivan ?” Lance murmured, hesitantly approaching the demon.  Kolivan closed his eyes and put a hand over them, still panting sharply. His whole frame was tense and hunched. 

“Lance,” Keith said, a warning in his voice. Lance ignored him. 

“ Kolivan ?” Lance said again. He stepped closer, and flinched slightly when  Kolivan moved. The huge demon lowered his hand and those solid yellow eyes opened, but they weren’t glowing as brightly anymore. He blinked rapidly, and then his gaze found Lance and the tension in him eased. 

“Prince Lazeron,” he said, voice rough, but relieved. His eyes briefly flickered towards Keith, glancing at the knife in his hand. His eyebrows raised, just a hair, the movement too miniscule for either men to pick up on. Then his attention turned back towards Lance. 

Lance sucked in a sharp breath of air and dove forward, wrapping his arms around the demon and hugging him as tightly as he could. Kolivan hugged him back, gently, attention focused on nothing except Lance in his arms. 

\----

Shiro kept the barrier magic up long enough to get everyone, including the seven-and-a-half-foot purple demon,  Kolivan , into the car. There seemed to be a silent agreement that questions and explanations could wait until they were some place more secure. 

It was only when they were all in the house with the doors locked both physically and magically that they all managed to relax. Lance immediately whirled on Kolivan and hugged him again. 

“How are you here? Why are you sane? What’s happened?” he rapid fired his questions off, not pausing at all to allow for answer.  Kolivan gently ran his clawed fingers through Lance’s hair, staying in the embrace for a long moment before moving back. He looked down at Lance, checking him over thoroughly, before he hooked one clawed finger into the neck of Lance’s shirt and pulled it down, just enough to reveal the now old looking scars around his neck. 

Kolivan glanced up at Shiro and Keith, face inscrutable, before he spoke to Lance. “You have finally fed properly. The queen was worried. She told me how bad your condition was when the pair of you spoke through the mirror link. Her first order for me upon arriving was to check to see if you had fed, and if not, to let you feed from me.” The way Shiro and Keith tensed up at the statement didn’t go unnoticed by the massive demon. 

“I’ve fed properly. I’m...” Lance huffed and shook his head. “Some days are easier than others.” 

Kolivan nodded and ran a hand through Lance’s hair again. “I know,” he murmured. “But as  time passes, there will slowly begin to be more good days than bad, and I will not leave your side again.”

“And who are you?” Keith couldn’t help but snap out the question. 

Kolivan stepped forward and addressed the two humans directly. “I am  Kolivan , leader of the elite  demonguard , the Blades of Marmora, acting as the personal body guard to Prince  Lazeron , the beautiful striking lance, the dual-magicked incubus prince of  Altea , brother to the High Queen Allura, the blessed light of the world, the ruler of  Altea and all demon-kind. I was sent here by the queen to keep Prince  Lazeron safe until which time she can safely come here herself to retrieve him.”

Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, to calm him and ground him, and nodded at  Kolivan . “We should all sit. If you’re here to protect Lance, then you’re welcome in our home.” 

Kolivan nodded in return, and ushered Lance over to the living room, sitting in a chair only after Lance had settled on the couch. Shiro and Keith sat at his side, not willing to distance themselves from Lance just because of  Kolivan’s sudden appearance. 

“So how did you get here?” Lance asked as soon as they were all settled. 

“The queen could not handle the idea of leaving you in this world while the portal array is being constructed. With the druids help, she and King  Lotor were able to find a way to mimic the summoning magic humans regularly use on us to bring us into this world. She gave me a blessing, a protection over my mind, to increase the chance that I would retain my sanity coming here.”

“Why would you risk yourself like that? You could have easily lost yourself entirely!” Lance said. 

“I promised the queen, and I promised your parents not long before they died that I would protect you, and I will do so even at the risk of my own life.”

“But we have no way to safely get back, the portal array may never work. We could be stuck in this world forever! What about Antok?”

“ Antok is a Blade, and he understands the duties. He approved of me coming here, and would have come along if the queen had been able to give us both a blessing. As it was, it was difficult enough for her to shield my mind alone.”

Lance hung his head and took a deep breath. “You shouldn’t have left him behind, possibly for good, just because of what I did.”

“You shielded your friend from this awful fate, don’t be ashamed of  that. Romelle’s mind would not have survived the journey, and her body wouldn’t have survived what you endured. News of your sacrifice has spread across the whole of our world, and you are a hero in their eyes once more.” 

Lance wrapped his arms around his stomach and his figure hunched slightly. “I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to go home.”

Shiro put an arm around Lance and held him close, kissing the side of his head when Lance leaned into him. 

“Will you tell us what happened that brought you here? Your sister mentioned it, and told us to ask you, but we haven’t wanted to pry. You took someone else’s place?”

“There’s not much more to it. I was with a friend, a succubus named  Romelle , when the summoning spell began to grab her. She was panicking, screaming for help, but we don’t know how to break the summoning spells once they start. I couldn’t stop the spell, but I could transfer it, like how I borrowed your magic Shiro. I shifted the summoning to myself so it would take me instead... most the time humans just ask us to do things for them, to grant them wishes or whatever. I never thought... I didn’t expect them to do what they did.” 

Keith wrapped his arm around Lance from the other side and whispered, “It’s okay, we’ve got you. They can’t hurt you anymore.” 

After a few deep breaths, Lance nodded and relaxed, but stayed cuddled in the circle of Keith and Shiro’s arms. 

“I am happy to see you have found comfort and support in this world, and I am happy to see you have finally been able to properly feed.”

“You mentioned that you were going to let Lance feed from you if he needed. Were you one of his lovers before he came here?” Keith couldn’t help but ask. It wasn’t out of jealousy, but more that he wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any tension between them all. 

Lance choked on a laugh at the word ‘lovers,’ and  Kolivan raised one eyebrow, the most expression he’d show so far. “I take it that the prince has not explained to you how incubi generally live in our world?”

Keith and Shiro exchanged a puzzled look. “When we spoke to his  sister she mentioned that Lance had dozens of powerful demons he fed from.” 

Lance was outright laughing now, and the tiniest of smiles  quirked at the edge of  Kolivan’s mouth. 

“I believe the queen was intentionally... misleading you on what that actually meant. From what little we know of  humans, they tend to be inherently jealous creatures. She was likely trying to push you into acknowledging your feelings for Prince  Lazeron .”

“She was fucking with you guys,” Lance said through his giggles. “I don’t actually have to have direct sex with someone to feed. What I need is sexual energy, and sexual energy is just like any energy or magic that can be stored in various ways, like your pearls Shiro. We have magical devices where you place them next to a person or persons engaging in sexual acts, and the devices automatically absorb the sexual energy and store it in an item. My kind can feed from the sexual energy stored in items.  So I mean yeah, I did have dozens of demons who provided me with the items, but they weren’t my lovers.”

“If you could do it that way, why not tell us from the start so you didn’t have to suffer while we got our shit together?” Keith asked. 

“The devices we use for that in our world are made by druids and are specifically enchanted to capture ambient sexual energy. I don’t have one of those devices in this world and I don’t have the magical capabilities to make one.”

Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed. “But  Kolivan offered to let you feed from him.”

Kolivan shook his head and reached into his jacket to pull out a small, gleaming, grape sized polyhedron like device. “I brought one of the enchanted devices – it can absorb sexual energy from an individual pleasuring themselves, and that is how I would assist. If I did not have such a device, I would still let Prince Lazeron directly feed from me, but as a demon with a bonded partner, that is something I would hope to avoid.  Antok would understand, but it would not be comfortable for the Prince or I.” 

Shiro looked over at Keith. “She was totally fucking with us.”

Keith just shrugged and looked at where their arms were still wrapped around Lance. “I mean, it worked didn’t it.”

Lance chuckled and shook his head. “I mean, some of my kind do choose to get sexual energy directly and take many different partners. Some will wait until they’re bonded, or some will, uh, date? That's what you guys call it right? I mean there’s no set way we have to live, we just have a unique diet.”

“It wouldn’t matter to us either way how you got your sustenance. You’re you and it doesn’t  matter who you did or didn’t have sex with. You’re Lance no matter what,” Shiro said. Lance smiled at him, open and happy, though it quickly turned into a wide yawn. 

“How much energy did you expend helping Arnie and Benji?” Shiro asked, looking at his watch and noting how early it still was. Lance had a lot more stamina recently and didn’t usually get tired so early.

“Probably more than I should of.”

“What did you do?”  Kolivan asked sharply.

Lance sighed. “I didn’t put myself in  danger. I already got lectured by these two and Matt about wasting too much energy when I'm still recovering. I just helped and  old man and his dog by taking away some of their pain.” 

Kolivan sighed. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Is it dangerous for him?” Keith asked. 

“No! It’s not dangerous at all,” Lance said quickly. 

“It is not dangerous, but it requires a great deal of energy and he isn’t just making the pain go away, he is taking it into himself. He feels whatever pain he takes away.”

“Lance,” Shiro said, sounding horrified. “You’ve been taking away the pain in my arm for weeks.”

“It’s not exactly how  Kolivan makes it sound. I feel the pain for only a couple seconds and then it fades completely. It’s not like I’m feeling the pain permanently, but he relief for you lasts days. It’s worth it.”

Shiro reached up and cupped Lance’s cheek, turning his head so they were face-to-face. “I don’t want to do anything that hurts you.” 

Lance placed his hand over Shiro’s and leaned into it, smiling slightly. “It’s my choice. A few minutes of pain are worth it to bring you some lasting relief.” Lance yawned again, so wide it looked like his jaw might crack. 

“Okay,” Shiro said, rubbing his thumb over the marking on Lance’s cheek. “But you should go to sleep since it seems like tonight wiped you out.”

“But...” Lance looked over at Kolivan. 

“ Kolivan can stay with us,” Keith said. “As long as he means no harm, he’s  welcome here.”

“I mean no harm. You don’t need to worry Prince  Lazeron , I will stay at your side until the queen arrives, so go get some rest.”

“I’ll show him to one of the guest rooms,” Keith said when Lance still looked uncertain. “You go ahead with Shiro and I’ll be there soon.” 

Lance nodded and let Shiro lead him away, out of the living room and into the bedroom. None of them had eaten dinner, but considering it was only about six in the evening, Lance would probably wake up in a few hours and they could all eat. Shiro and Keith could wait, and neither of them were going to let Lance sleep alone. 

“I heard from the queen that your name is Keith, is that correct?”  Kolivan asked as soon as Shiro and Lance were gone. 

Keith felt suddenly wary. “That’s right.”

“I would like to see your blade, the one you  wielded earlier tonight.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.”

Keith hesitated, but eventually pulled his black-bladed dagger our, holding it up, but not offering it to  Kolivan to take. 

“Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift from my mother.”

“Was she an exorcist? Did she take it from a demon?”

“No, neither of my parents were exorcists. When my dad gave this to me, he told me it was something special to her and that she would want me to have it.”

“Can you activate it?”  Kolivan spoke slowly, hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to hear the answer to his own question. 

Keith’s face was pinched, but he exerted a little bit of his will into to the blade, and with a small burst of magic the dagger transformed into a curved short sword. 

Kolivan stared at it for a long moment, silent, and while his face remained impassive, there was a sadness to him, only noticeable by the tightness in his eyes and the way his large frame hunched ever so slightly. 

“What do you know about my blade?” Keith asked.  Kolivan reached into the folds of his clothes and pulled out a black dagger. It was different than Keith’s, bigger, but it had the same black blade and showed elements of the same type of design. 

With a small burst of magic,  Kolivan’s dagger activated into a long, wickedly curved sword, the black blade shining in the lamplight of the room. Keith looked between it and his own blade, unsure of what to say or how to react. 

“It seems there is much you and I need to discuss, but it would be best to do it later when the prince and your bonded are here.”

“What does it mean that we have the same type of blade?”

Kolivan stood up and deactivated his blade, tucking the dagger back into his clothing once it diminished it size. “It would be best to have this discussion later. I am exhausted from the journey between worlds and need rest, and you should go to Prince  Lazeron and accompany him while he sleeps. The queen informed me of his nightmares. I promise you, we will have this discussion, but it will be later.” 

Keith looked at the tall demon for a long moment, weighing those words. His gaze shifted down to his sword, and his eyes traced the curved edges of the blade while his mind wandered back to his childhood, to his hazy memories of a woman whose face he had long forgotten, to a clearer memory of his father giving him the blade a mere couple months before he died. He’d never questioned it too much, only happy to have some memory of his parents. He’d never questioned why his mother had owned such a curious, magically powerful weapon, not until now. 

When Keith looked back up at  Kolivan and saw that faint sadness weighing on the demon’s form, Keith decided that whatever conversation that was to come, he wanted Shiro and Lance to be with him for it.  So he swallowed his questions and stood up, showing  Kolivan into one of the guest rooms, briefly explaining how everything in the bathroom worked, before leaving  Kolivan to his rest and making his way to his own bedroom. 

Lance was already asleep when Keith walked in, wrapped up in Shiro’s arms and breathing peacefully. Shiro looked up when he noticed Keith walking in, but the smile died on his face when he noticed the troubled expression on Keith’s. He tilted his head in question, but Keith just shook his head. He quickly changed into some sweats and a baggy sleep t-shirt before joining Shiro on the bed. He pressed himself up against Shiro’s back and sighed, letting the quiet of the room wash over them. 

“We got pranked by a demon queen,” he whispered. Shiro laughed quietly. 

“Can’t say I regret it,” Shiro said, looking down at sleeping Lance in his arms.

“No, I don’t regret it.” Keith took a deep breath. “I think  Kolivan knows something about my mom.”

Shiro tensed. “How would he know about your mother?”

“I don’t know, but he has a blade almost exactly like mine. I don’t know what that means. He said he’ll tell me about it when we’re all together.”

“Whatever it means, we’ll be there for you. I love you.”

Keith nodded and kissed the back of Shiro’s neck. “I love you too.” 

Despite it still being early in the morning, they all managed to fall asleep, while  Kolivan sat on the bed in the guest room, his blade in his hands, head hung low and body stooped in sorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could give you all an estimate of when the next chapter will be out, but I'm a master's degree student now which means I have approximately zero free time. Hooraaaaaay. But I will do my best to get the next one out before the end of December. 
> 
> Love you all, thanks for all the support!

**Author's Note:**

> Yoooooo. I'm back to writing after a longggggg hiatus. Check in with me on Tumblr, Twitter, or Insta if you wanna catch up or see some of my art that I've been working on improving. @celtybae


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